One, Two, Many Words Missing

Einstein wrote somewhat famously about relativity in his work in physics, but his theory gets more use, I think, in everyday politics. Many of these politicians, it turns out, are lawyers, and if there’s one group other than editors who’ve learned to be exacting in their use of language, it’s lawyers.
They try hard to speak at great length and say very little, and when you think about what they’re saying, you might find they imply more than they state. The more they do this, the more successful they are as politicians.

English is pretty old language, I think, and was more suited to talking about groups of things back when it was invented. It’s brimming with vague words to talk about numbers, ones we use every day somewhat casually.

We talk about a couple of things, everyone knows we’re talking about two. A few is three or four, and several seems to me to be talking about no more than five to seven. After that, I think we pretty much run out of words except for dozens, hundreds, grosses, and others that don’t get frequent use. We do have plenty of other vague words to describe numbers of things, not the least of which is plenty, itself. Except for some and many. We use those a lot, and politicians are very fond of them and use them all the time. Some is a great word. It logically means “more than one,” and is used to describe, literally, any number of things, especially when we don’t want to be specific.

When I say, “I have some problems,” unless you press me for details, you have no idea how many problems I have. If I say I have a handful, you get an idea, more than you would have if I said lots. Lots, like some, is relative.

President Bush occasionally tries to show his awareness of opposition by saying that “some on the other side” or “some people” disagree with him. The thing is, he’s right, but he isn’t saying anything. Some can mean four people, and in that context it would only make sense if he was talking about a local Lions club, not the 300 million American people.

“Many people support my proposal,” is equally true. It sounds great, almost as if nearly a majority of people are on his side, but it would be a true statement if only a dozen did.

We have unspecified words to indicate one more than half, a majority, but in the case of the US there’s a wide gap between dozens and 150,000,001 that none of our words specifically indicate. When our tribes numbered no more than twenty, some people agreeing could mean you had less than half, less than the number that might be indicated by many.

Whenever I hear any politician use these terms in their speeches or debates, I cringe, even more so when they use them as if I know what they mean. There should be no “many” in politics, not unless I know for a fact that they’re talking about more than six people in their inner party.
It sounds good, but means nothing. Maybe that says more about a politician than I care to consider.