All or none, all or some, (generalities....)

grahamg

grahamg

Old codger
Location
South of Manchester, UK
During discussions on forums such as this one, I find myself trying to point out where I believe someone has used a generality, thus stating "all or none" are in favour of or against something, (or whatever it might be), when it would be better, or more accurate to say "some" instead of all/none..... I hope you're with me here :)?

A good example is where someone might hint or say "All men are like this or that", (ditto, "All women are this or that"), and we can of course all be guilty of this failing.

However, there are of course instances where we do mean "All men", or "All women", (such as when an old boss of mine, who I like to quote, and had been married three times, used to say, "No one could try to tell him men and women shouldn't be paid the same for doing the same job, but neither could anyone tell him there were not times when men and women thought differently").
 

Lets have a bit of research into the thread topic:

Generalities
They muddy the windowpane of your writing and obscure your real thinking from the view of your audience. ... Their presence is a warning that you may have written a generality. Non-specific words like many, most, a few or some, are also clues to you, that you need to add more details to your writing.

Examples of generalities:
1) Generalities say nothing about you and thus, prospective employers will tune out..

2). However, there are two generalities among babies, they should all smile at you if you smile and respond if you call them.

3). To deal in generalities, plants capture, on average, about 5 percent of the solar energy that falls on their leaves.

https://sentence.yourdictionary.com/generalities
 

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