7.5: Saying Little with Lots of Words

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Bradley H. Dowden
California State University Sacramento

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When a politician pounds her fist on the podium and yells, "A tax is a tax!" she tells us she does not want more taxes, but literally what she is saying is trivial. We know to look beyond the literal triviality. Unfortunately, some speakers and writers have no depth; there is nothing beyond the triviality. This newspaper headline is an example:

Heat Wave Blamed for Record High

Temperatures Across U.S.

What else would you blame? This headline has low information content. It contains no information that isn't already known by everybody. Similarly, you receive little information when you hear a politician mention that she supports her country, that she wants schools to teach the children better, that she believes it is now time to cut the fat from government, that she believes it is the government's responsibility to protect the people, and so on. The problem with what the politician says is not that the speech selectively emphasizes the trivial; it wouldn't be trivial to create better schools or cut the fat from government. But it is trivial to say you want to do these
things, because so does everyone else—what's new?

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

What is wrong with the following comment?

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.

—Professor Irwin Corey.

Answer: Too obviously true. Low information content. But a great joke from the notorious professor.