Saturday, April 26, 2025

spot the error

I just saw a YouTube video with the title

Is your life better than a medieval peasant?

What's the problem? Hint: the name of the error begins with "faulty."


7 comments:

  1. I don't know the name of the rule, but the fix I would make is to phrase it as: Is your life better than that of a medieval peasant? Now I'm going to go watch the video, it sounds interesting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it's a faulty comparison. By adding "that of," you now have a proper life-to-life comparison.

      Delete
  2. I'm going to guess the technical name of the error is "faulty comparison," since the sentence compares "your life" with "a medieval peasant" (instead of "the life of a medieval peasant). Anyway, I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes." Did you watch the video to see how the presenter answered the question?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I watched only part of the video. Got the impression that the presenter was going for nuance, in the spirit of "the answer might surprise you." I should watch all the way through.

      Delete
  3. They always say the answer might surprise me. It usually doesn't.

    ReplyDelete

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