Exam 3: Cost Volume Profit Analysis and Pricing Decisions

Determine whether the following claim is best classified as semantically ambiguous (and whether this contains grouping ambiguities), syntactically ambiguous, or free from ambiguity: People who go shopping often go broke.

Classify the following: "Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth."-Ambrose Bierce

Classify the following: "Conversation-the enemy of good wine and food."-Alfred Hitchcock

Classify the following: "An ogre is a monster who dines on humans."

Evaluate the following claim, paying particular attention to problems of clarity. Note that claims may also present problems of knowability, though we don't address knowability per se in this chapter. Obscene movies available at movie rental outlets are harmful to children who watch them.

Using a name or description of an item that you can't point to, provide a definition by example for "ambiguous claim." If you have difficulty doing so, try to identify the source of the trouble.

A definition used to reduce the vagueness of an expression is called a precising definition.

Considering the context in which it was most likely uttered, would you say the following claim is ambiguous, too vague, or neither? There will be over one hundred consolation prizes worth over $10 ,000.

For the following, indicate whether the definition given is by example, by synonym, or analytical: A loquacious person is a talkative one.

Determine whether the following claim is too vague in the context that is stated or implied: From the label of a can of spaghetti sauce: "Made with real meat."

Arrange the lettered items below in order of increasingly favorable emotive meaning. Instructor and/or students may want to fuss about some of our rankings in these problems. We've said (a) = (b) when (a) and (b) seem equally favorable to us. The paper you turned in last week was a. mediocre. b. fine. c. competent. d. adequate. e. quite good.

Classify the following definition according to its use: to reduce vagueness, to introduce or explain a new or unusual word, to evoke an attitude about something, or to accomplish some other purpose. A barrister is a lawyer in Britain who actually argues the case in court.

For "conservative (noun)," provide an analytical definition that is flattering.

Classify the following definition according to its use: to reduce vagueness, to introduce or explain a new or unusual word, to evoke an attitude about something, or to accomplish some other purpose. "Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read."-Frank Zappa

For the term, "banker," invent a persuasive definition (either positive or negative). Remember, persuasive definitions can be analytical definitions, definitions by example, or definitions by synonym.

Exercise: Find an example of, and discuss, A) a persuasive definition, and B) a precising definition.

Classify the following: "If you want to know what corruption is, just look at the Democratic senator from this state."

Criticize the following claim based on the material from Chapter 3 of the text. "In terms of arting, where the reference condition is not fixed or even known conceptually but rather something coming to being, what can we hope through our formative hermeneutic movement? To make the 'otherness' of the arting process more other, more 'objective' in a newer sense and less 'subjective' in the older sense, so that the arting process itself speaks more purely?"-Kenneth R. Beittel, Penn State University (quoted in Edwin Newman, Strictly Speaking)

Considering the context in which it was most likely uttered, would you say the following claim is ambiguous, too vague, or neither? The instructions for a set of exercises: "Determine whether these claims are too vague given the contexts that are stated or implied."

Determine whether the following claim is best classified as semantically ambiguous (and whether this contains grouping ambiguities), syntactically ambiguous, or free from ambiguity: "Corporate executives outspend working families 11 to 1 in politics."-Center for Responsive Politics & Federal Elections Commission