Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Jun 19, 2014 12:24:46 GMT 5.5
Foreign Affairs published a very interesting article by Alexander Lukin yesterday, 18 June 2014--What the Kremlin is Thinking: Putin’s Vision for Eurasia, which has the following passage:
Western leaders are woefully misinformed about the idea of Eurasian integration. Neither Russia nor any of the states seeking to join a Eurasian system wants to restore the Soviet Union or openly confront the West. They do, however, believe that in a multipolar world, free nations have a right to create independent associations among themselves.Let alone the politics of East-West tussle. Let's see how modifiers (qualifiers and quantifiers) can tone what you say. What is the difference between (1) and (2)?
1. openly confront the West2. confront the West
In (1), X confronts the West openly, not less conspicuously or secretly. If X does not confront Y openly, he/she may do it less conspicuously or secretly. In "confronting" "less conspicuously" or "secretly", X definitely does "confront", but "less conspicuously" or "secretly" tells us how X does it. Open confrontation is different from secret confrontation, and in such a confrontation the military maneuvers of the involved parties are different from how they do it in cases of open confrontations. Example (2) states the fact of X's confronting the West, and how X does that--the mode--is not stated. The absence of a modifier here is very significant, or even crucial, because, in this case X may not care to keep it less conspicuous or secret, for the point is "to confront", perhaps openly.
Modifiers can do a lot for you when you say or write things. If you are not sure exactly how many people stormed your building, and if you do not want to name an exact figure (as in 3), which may have at least legal consequences, then you can say something like (4):
Modifiers can do a lot for you when you say or write things. If you are not sure exactly how many people stormed your building, and if you do not want to name an exact figure (as in 3), which may have at least legal consequences, then you can say something like (4):
3. Thirty people stormed my building.If you don't want to say your friend is wrong straight away (as in 5), because it may hurt him, but you want to tone and nuance what you say while communicating the same information you want conveyed, you may say something like (6):
4. About 30 people stormed my building.
5. You are wrong.Almost tones down right, and enables you to convey the information that your friend is less than right, but you avoid the word wrong which is quite direct.
6. You are almost right.
[to be continued]