Sensi Star
Active Member
I've often been perceiving subtle errors / misuses made by others regarding the logical structure of language. I feel other people use language very loosely, arbitrarily, while INTPs use language with pin-point precision, becoming an engineer of words (consistent with independent INTP descriptions). A very common linguistic concept is the inability for one to perceive that slight change(s) in the order of words within a sentence can change the entire statement formed. The result is people using the wrong order of words for the statement attempting to be conveyed.
For example:
"Not everyone in the U.S. has a high risk for cancer."
"Everyone does not have a high risk for cancer in the U.S."
The effect here is a major change in the logical meaning of the sentence. In the former sentence, "not everyone" is not hard to interpret; it simply means "not 100% of people". The latter sentence is tricky: because the word "not" appears after everyone and before "have", it becomes associate with the word "have" rather than with "everyone". So "everyone + not have" in effect becomes the equivalent of "No one has" or "0% of people have".
Despite the 2 drastically different meanings achieved by the alternate ordering of "not", "everyone", and "has/have", people tend to use sentences like these 2 interchangeably.
In the interest of brevity, I'll save other ones for other posts. I would like you guys to comment on your opinion of if/how INTPs have a different relationship to language than other types do, and to include some examples of linguistic subtleties you have perceived.
For example:
"Not everyone in the U.S. has a high risk for cancer."
"Everyone does not have a high risk for cancer in the U.S."
The effect here is a major change in the logical meaning of the sentence. In the former sentence, "not everyone" is not hard to interpret; it simply means "not 100% of people". The latter sentence is tricky: because the word "not" appears after everyone and before "have", it becomes associate with the word "have" rather than with "everyone". So "everyone + not have" in effect becomes the equivalent of "No one has" or "0% of people have".
Despite the 2 drastically different meanings achieved by the alternate ordering of "not", "everyone", and "has/have", people tend to use sentences like these 2 interchangeably.
In the interest of brevity, I'll save other ones for other posts. I would like you guys to comment on your opinion of if/how INTPs have a different relationship to language than other types do, and to include some examples of linguistic subtleties you have perceived.
