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Wat this all is, to my eyes, is people putting form over function. If you care about the message, you consider the people receiving it and try to reduce ambigu
by kbenson 5y ago
Wat this all is, to my eyes, is people putting form over function. If you care about the message, you consider the people receiving it and try to reduce ambiguity as much as possible. If you care about the medium, then you make trade-offs about aesthetics which may reduce legibility but appeal to some other quality that is being considered.
There's obviously a place for both. Poetry does not necessarily benefit by removing ambiguity. Technical manuals do. Depending on what the author is attempting to do, different choices may be made.
In contracts meant to define actions and behaviors, ambiguity is not beneficial (at least not for anyone that's not trying to swindle someone else). There are constructs or forms that can be used to reduce ambiguity, and they should be used where appropriate. For example, if a bulleted list is allowed, that removes quite a bit of ambiguity in some cases.
Unfortunately, for contracts we are forced to use an imprecise medium (natural language) to define what we want to be a precise set of constraints. There will always be some friction there where one for not accurately account for what's meant by the other. Additionally, accurately describing all relevant facets of reality that might apply is hard.