highly ambiguous words

minoborona   Wed May 27, 2009 5:20 am GMT
Do you find the following sentence highly ambiguous?


This code cannot correct any pairs of errors.

Does this mean:
1. This code cannot correct any (none at all) pairs of errors.
2. This code cannot correct any (arbitrary) pairs of errors.

Similarly, the following sentence has the same problem:

This code cannot correct all pairs of errors.
1. This code cannot correct all pairs (100% of them) of errors.
2. This code cannot correct all pairs (it can correct some, but there are exceptions) of errors.


Do you find this highly restricting? Although it's not surprising because I guess that is what they invented ∀ and ∃ for! I wonder if it's the same in other tongues...
Johnny   Wed May 27, 2009 12:16 pm GMT
<<I wonder if it's the same in other tongues... >>

Yes. I doubt there is a single natural language that follows formal logic rules systematically.