The words covered in this article are apprehensive, ambiguity, unequivocal, equivocal, and discrepancy
“I have often been apprehensive, that the manner in which I express myself, may lead you into some mistakes of my meaning, the signification of words, in the language of men, being so unsettled, that it is scarce possible to convey a determinate sense . . . ; for where different, or perhaps contrary meanings are signified by the same word, how easy it is for a mind, prone to error, to take the wrong one?”
C. Johnston, Chrysal, 1768
Apprehensive
The adjective apprehensive means fearful, uneasy. Noun form: apprehension
The author of the above quote is apprehensive that his statements may be misunderstood. The possibility of such misunderstandings is our main topic today.
Ambiguity
The adjective ambiguous is used for something that is not clear and potentially confusing, because it can be interpreted in more than one way.
Noun: Ambiguity.
In C. Johnston’s quote above, he expresses a fear of being misunderstood on account of words and sentences that can be interpreted in more than one way. Let’s say that he uses a word X, which has two meanings, M1 and M2, in the following sentence:
“I do X.”
What he may be telling you is:
“I do M1.”
But what you understand may be that he does M2.
Such words as X are called ambiguous words. For example, take the following sentence:
“I saw a bat.”
The word ‘saw’ here could either be the past tense of “see” or the present tense of “saw” (‘to cut with a saw’). Further, the word ‘bat’ too could mean either a flying mammal or a sports equipment.
So, without a clarifying context, this sentence could be interpreted in four ways:
- I observed the flying mammal named bat with my eyes.
- I observed the sports equipment named bat with my eyes.
- I cut the flying mammal named bat with a saw.
- I cut the sport equipment named bat with a saw.
Because the sentence “I saw a bat” is open to four distinct interpretations, we’ll call it an ambiguous sentence.
The multiple interpretations that are possible for ambiguous words are not always harmless. For example, someone may call the police on you if they interpreted your statement
“I saw men”
to mean that you routinely murder men by cutting them up with a saw.
It is especially important to avoid the possibility of multiple interpretations when you are writing a contract or a law. Below is the opening paragraph of an academic paper titled Ambiguity and Misunderstanding in the Law (link):
“The law is a profession of words. By means of words contracts are created, statutes are enacted, and constitutions come into existence. Yet, in spite of all good intentions, the meanings of the words found in documents are not always clear and unequivocal. . . [the words used in legal documents] may be capable of being understood in more ways than one, they may be doubtful or uncertain, and they may lend themselves to various interpretations by different individuals. When differences in understanding are irresolvable, the parties . . . may end up in litigation and ask the court to come up with its interpretation. In the eyes of the law, when this kind of situation arises, the contract or the legislative act contains ambiguity.”
Professor Sanford Schane, the author of the academic paper linked above, begins his paper with this quote taken from David Mellinkoff’s work, The Language of the Law.
Unequivocal
Unequivocal means having only one possible meaning or interpretation; unambiguous and unmistakable.
When you say an unequivocal no to a proposal, your rejection is so firm that the other party knows that there is no chance of them being able to persuade you to say yes.
A synonym of unequivocal is ‘univocal’ (the prefix uni- means ‘one’). Both these words are opposites of equivocal.
Equivocal
Equivocal means ambiguous, capable of being interpreted in two or more ways.
In Logic, terms are said to be ‘univocal’ when they can suggest no more than one definite meaning, and to be equivocal (or ambiguous) when they have two or more different meanings. The word ‘photosynthesis’ is univocal – it has only one meaning. The words ‘saw’ and ‘man’ are equivocal, as discussed above. Another example of an equivocal word is ‘nut’ – it could refer to the food, the mechanical tool and a foolish or insane person.
What about the word ‘chicken’? Is it univocal or equivocal?
It turns out to be very much equivocal and has multiple possible interpretations, a fact that was painfully discovered by the parties to the case of Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B.N.S. International Sales Corp. This is a classic case in the annals of contract law and is frequently taught in law schools.
What happened was this.
Frigaliment, a Swiss company, ordered frozen chickens of two sizes – 1 ½ to 2 pounds, and 2 ½ to 3 pounds – from a New York based wholesaler of poultry named B.N.S. When the shipment arrived in Europe, Frigaliment found that the larger birds were all stewing chickens instead of the broilers and fryers that it expected. It sued B.N.S. for breach of contract.
Frigaliment’s argument was that ‘chicken’ means a young chicken, suitable for broiling and frying. On the other hand, B.N.S. insisted that a ‘chicken’ is any bird of the genus Gallus gallus and because ‘stewing chicken’ met the contract specifications on weight and quality, the company had duly honored the contract.
Therefore, the main issue before the court was to clarify: what is chicken?
The case was heard by Judge Henry Friendly. He agreed that “the word ‘chicken’ standing alone is ambiguous.” He then distinguished between the meanings used by the two disputants as:
- A ‘broad’ sense (i.e. any member of the genus Gallus gallus) and
- A ‘narrow’ sense (i.e. one specific kind of chicken: broilers and fryers).
Both parties called experts from the poultry business as witnesses to strengthen their claims. A witness for Frigaliment confirmed that within the trade, ‘chicken’ did not include stewing chicken. On the other hand, a witness for B.N.S. said, “Chicken is everything except a goose, a duck, and a turkey. Everything is a chicken, but then you have to say, you have to specify which category you want or are talking about.”
The judge agreed with this second statement. Ruling in favor of B.N.S., he said that if Frigaliment was so particular about getting only one specific kind of chicken, it should have laid out this requirement precisely in the contract rather than using an equivocal word like ‘chicken’ and then assuming that the other party understood the word in the same way.
The moral of the Frigaliment v B.N.S case is that parties to an agreement should try their best to use clear and unequivocal language in expressing their intention and promise. Otherwise, they may sign the contract now under the impression that they have a meeting of minds and only later learn that they understood some crucial term differently. Such discrepancy in belief is known in contract law as misunderstanding and often brings the two disputants to court.
Discrepancy
Discrepancy means a difference or an inconsistency, as between facts, figures, or claims. This word is a noun.
In the above sentence, the phrase ‘discrepancy in belief’ means, ‘difference in what the two parties believe the agreement says.’ An example of this is the case we just discussed: Frigaliment believed that the contract was for delivery of broilers and fryers while B.N.S believed that the contract was for delivery for any kind of chickens as long as they met the weight requirement.
Tomorrow, I will share another example of an ambiguous word whose multiple interpretations have led to fierce debates in courtrooms and society. But before we call it a day, here are some more usage examples for the words you’ve learnt today.
- Apprehensive that she was being followed, she changed her plan of walking back home and instead went into the nearest metro station, which she knew would be crowded, and took a train that was bursting at the seams with commuters to another busy station in the opposite direction.
- The image shown here, drawn by William E. Hill, is ambiguous because it can be seen as either a young woman or an old woman. (Hint: The young woman’s necklace is the old woman’s mouth)
- The ambiguous sentence below can be interpreted in eight ways. Can you find them?
“I saw a man on a hill with a telescope.”
- Do you see the ‘Services’ menu tab on the top right of this website (grecoachjk.com)? The earlier label for this tab was ‘Work with me.’ I changed it when I realized that it was an ambiguous label that could be understood in two ways – become my student and prepare for the GRE with me, or explore the job opportunities that I am offering.
- As per the sociologist Leon Festinger, when most people are presented with unequivocal and undeniable evidence that their beliefs are wrong, such beliefs do not only remain unshaken but also often get even stronger.
- There was a discrepancy between the heading of the report and its content.
- The investigating officer arrested the dead man’s girlfriend on the charge of his murder because there was a big discrepancy between the evidence and her version of events. After many days of interrogation, she finally admitted to the murder and gave a signed confession with all details of how she had committed it. However, when the case came up in the court, a journalist discovered an important discrepancy between what she had said to the police and what she was now saying in the court; the fact that she did not seem to realize this inconsistency herself suggested that she was trying to shield the actual murderer by taking the blame on herself.