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To: Alamo-Girl
Still in Dave Barry mode, another episode of "Look Out! Here Comes Mr. Language-Enforcement Person!"

... accommodates all potential possibilities.

Redundant. I picked on Grandpierre a bit for this usage. Potentially, it may be possible that English may not be his first language. There is no need to accomodate anything beyond real possibilities. While it may be possible that a thing could only potentially be possible, the distinction seems overly nuanced.

271 posted on 08/16/2005 7:18:31 AM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: VadeRetro; betty boop
Thank you for your reply!

Without getting into yet another sidebar on "what is reality?" - I would like to suggest that "potential possibilities" may indeed seem grammatically tautologous.

However, I suspect his intent was to convey that not all possibilities are equal.

Around here, it seems like when many people speak of "probabilities" they are actually speaking about combinations. It is frequently argued that way against the theory of evolution - the "improbability" of this or that is presented as a simple combination.

And, invariably, the equating of probability and combination is countered by alternative probability theory (such as Bayesian) which makes the point that not all possibilities are equally likely to occur.

274 posted on 08/16/2005 7:44:33 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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