4 ms·
Yes, that is quite pedantic. It is clear from the article that Betteridge meant headlines that could be phrased assertively but are not (i.e. yes-or-no question
by chc 14y ago
Yes, that is quite pedantic. It is clear from the article that Betteridge meant headlines that could be phrased assertively but are not (i.e. yes-or-no questions).
And the word "universal" is generally scoped to some domain — if we say "living human brings universally have some cardiac organ, whether natural or man-made", that does not extend to dead human beings or to rocks. In this case, the domain is, as noted above, newspaper newspaper headlines that question an assertion.
- dfc 14y agoYour domain was scoped by the "living human brings(sic)," that is why it is clear that dead people or rocks where irrelevant. I have always taken universally to mean as wide of a scope as possible. I was not sure where you where referring to when you said "as noted above?" The two pg essays I linked to could have been an assertion but the answer did not seem to be no, but I could be wrong. From the quick essays of pg's that I read he seemed to use the question mark for pieces that required a much more nuanced answer than yes or no.