Which says a lot

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What's the meaning of "that's saying a lot. Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 6 months ago. Active 4 years, 2 months ago. Viewed 18k times. Some example sentences I found on Google Books: "There was nothing I loved more than English, not even volleyball and that's saying a lot! Improve this question. Bharath Manjesh Bharath Manjesh 4 4 gold badges 5 5 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges.

The second is a little "lame", since "that's saying a lot" is redundant. The other uses are reasonably idiomatic, where "that's saying a lot" emphasizes and amplifies the distinction previously stated. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. The idiom lets you anchor two propositions against one another in order to add emphasis. There was nothing I loved more than English, not even volleyball and that's saying a lot! Oxford English Dictionary.

Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Example 12 also shows that in actual instantiations of the construction the grammatical position of X does not have to be limited to the first position. As slot Y is optional, it has been placed between brackets. As we have seen, 1a is an example in which slot Y is indeed filled:. Furthermore, in cases where there is no indication of a standpoint at all, Y should also be regarded as unfilled.

In contrast, the Y slot is a necessary element in the mother construction without the quantifying expression. Footnote The analysis presented in this section should have made clear that instantiations of the expression that says Q derive their argumentative function as a linking premise from their being an instantiation of the semantic characteristics of the grammatical construction X V Q Y.

As noted above, different instantiations of the construction may involve differences in grammatical complexity, primarily caused by the way slot X has been filled. However, this does not alter the fact that all potential instantiations of the construction have the argumentative function of a linking premise. But this argumentative function is also present in the simpler instantiations of the construction, where the object of the verb of speech is a noun phrase.

And when met with scepticism about whether your holiday was really okay, you could refer to a picture with a beautiful landscape in order to argue that it was great. This difference can be indicated not only in terms of grammatical complexity, but also in terms of argumentative complexity. That is, in such arguments both the premise and the standpoint are elements that have been left implicit and need to be reconstructed from this linking premise.

From this linking premise, both a premise and a standpoint can be reconstructed. Moreover, in this context, the utterance can be understood as implying the standpoint that the candidate is not suited to the job. The whole argumentation could then be analysed as follows: 1.

They are arguments in which the premise refers to something that is symptomatic of the subject or object mentioned in the standpoint Garssen , p. Or, in other words, the premise of such an argument includes a sign that is suggested to entail the acceptability of the standpoint. Footnote 12 In fragment 1 the sign consists of behaviour, i. In 2 the reasons people say they have for voting for a political candidate are taken as a sign that they have the wrong reasons for doing so.

In 3 the extraordinary experiences a game can give are presented as a sign that games have a powerful entertaining and artistic value.

In 4 posting comments on a left-wing blog while you are a right-wing Tory is presented as a sign of having dishonest intentions. As Pascual , p. In a metonymical relationship, what is mentioned is used as a representation of what is meant. This is possible because what is mentioned and what is meant are related to each other in some contingent way. It is through this relationship between sign and signified that what is mentioned functions as an indication of what is meant.

The important point here is that this relationship, which may consist of all kinds of associations, makes X an indication or: a symptom of the standpoint. It also agrees with the results of a large collection of arguments formulated with that says Q or related expressions in both Dutch and English. All its instantiations involve symptomatic argumentation.

Her argumentation goes as follows. As a consequence, this connotation of explicitly uttered words is, in turn, evoking an interactional setting in which the hearer has to fulfil a role, i. To this end, I will make use of the pragma-dialectical framework of strategic manoeuvring and its terminology of the strategic potential of discussion moves.

A regular linking premise consists of or can be reformulated as a conditional if…then sentence, in which the content of the premise is connected to the content of the standpoint.

Footnote 14 If this element remains unexpressed in an argumentation, which is often the case, the analyst has the task of making it explicit, i. In its most basic form, a linking premise can be analysed as an if…then sentence that literally repeats what is expressed in the premise and the standpoint.

Footnote 15 In practice, this means reconstructing a linking premise by abstracting from the particulars mentioned in those elements. Such a generalised version is used in the reconstructions of fragment 1 , as each of those linking premises abstracts from the particular persons mentioned in the premise and standpoint.

Footnote 16 Be that as it may, the point I want to make here is that regardless of how generalised it is, a regular linking premise gives a clear indication of the content of the premise and the standpoint. It is true that I have characterised the concept of a linking premise by means of the requirements imposed by argumentation theory for its reconstruction in a situation where it has been left unexpressed which is often the case.

That does not, however, derogate this characterisation, because linking premises as described above do occur in actual argumentative discourse. Firstly, instantiations of that says Q , e. Neither do they provide any standpoint content, as Q does not refer to such content, but only to the degree of justificatory power that is attributed to the premise. Of course, the standpoint can be present in the cotext or inferred from the context, but the important thing to note here is that it is not part of the that says Q pattern.

Rather, these expressions formulate a degree of justificatory force to be attached to the inference. These two characteristics of a linking premise formulated by that says Q allow for two strategic uses, which will be discussed in the next subsections. One strategic use of that says Q is that this expression enables an arguer to leave the standpoint unexpressed. Usually, when an argumentation contains an unexpressed standpoint, the elements that make up the argument consist of an explicit premise and an explicit linking premise, as in 13 :.

You are asking stupid questions and those will not be answered. In this argument, the standpoint, i. However, the above line of reasoning does not apply to cases where a premise is combined with a linking premise embodied by an instantiation of that says Q.

After all, while a regular linking premise like the one in 13 refers to a standpoint content in its consequent, the pattern that says Q does not. All this expression does is indicate that a conclusion should be drawn. And although that says Q suggests that it is obvious which standpoint content the arguer is aiming at, it can sometimes be pretty difficult to grasp what exactly it should be taken to mean.

This even holds for cases in which a clue is given in an about clause. Remember 1a :. It is not clear, however, how far the negative characterisation of this attitude may go. At the same time, there seems to be a slight suggestion that it involves more, but what this more is, is left to the interpretation of the hearer. Leaving the interpretation of the standpoint to the hearer can be a strategic manoeuvre for several reasons.

Another reason could be that the standpoint is about something emotional or just very complicated and hard to put in only one sentence. In such cases, it may be difficult for the arguer to find the proper formulation and it can be an advantageous move to let the hearer reconstruct which standpoint has been defended. This is strategic because it is likely that antagonists would interpret the standpoint in a way that is most logical to them, including the nuances and conditions under which they would accept it.

It provides the protagonist with the opportunity to avoid committing himself to a specific content in advance, and it also leaves him space to distance himself from the content that is reconstructed by an antagonist, if it were beneficial to do so.

The second strategic use of that says Q functioning as a linking premise has to do with its semantics. Although different instantiations of Q convey a different degree of force, in each case the expression suggests an obvious link between the premise and the standpoint.

It may therefore mislead less critical or less attentive antagonists if they do not take the trouble to find out what the linking premise actually consists of and whether this is acceptable. Moreover, the higher the degree of justificatory force that is suggested, the greater is the suggestion that the premise offers enough support or even more than enough support for the standpoint.

These expressions convey the impression that no further explanation or support is needed. They are therefore a strategic means to close a discussion or even to prevent it from starting. It can discourage opponents from expressing criticism because the way the linking premise is formulated may make them doubt their own knowledge and good judgement. It has become clear that instantiations of that says Q with positive polarity are a means to leave the standpoint implicit and to present the linking premise as self-evident.

These two uses yield two potential fallacies that could be committed when the linking premise is phrased in the clothing of such an expression. This discussion rule reads:. This discussion rule is violated if that says Q is used to formulate a linking premise while its context does not provide enough clues for an interpretation of the standpoint, thus allowing many possible interpretations.

Consider for instance the argumentation in In the first line of this fragment the author repeats a statement by Jenny Diski, to which he responds in the rest of it:. I am against antisemitism and racism in general, but I am also against the idea of Zionism and dismayed by its consequences. How should the standpoint in fragment 14 be reconstructed? It seems that more than one fair interpretation is possible—fair with respect to what the author can be said to have actually committed himself to.

But the author could surely distance himself from this interpretation were he met with criticism. Or he could say that his standpoint is not about Diski but about all people who make exceptions to the unacceptability of anti-Semitism and racism, and that it is saying that people should not make exceptions to them. The several possibilities show that the arguer is evading his responsibility of committing himself to a standpoint, the consequence of which could be that an antagonist accepts the standpoint without actually knowing its precise context.

I consider this to be a derailment of the strategic use of that says Q. In cases like this, the arguer violates the tenth pragma-dialectical discussion rule by committing the fallacy of unclearness van Eemeren and Grootendorst , p.

A second fallacy relating to explicitly presenting a linking premise with instantiations of that says Q 1 often involves the stronger instantiations of Q and 2 relates to the criteria for a correct application of the argumentation scheme.

This does not mean, however, that the fallacy involved is an infringement the pragma-dialectical argumentation scheme rule. What it entails is that putting forward an explicit linking premise in the clothing of that says Q can be regarded as a means to immunise the argument against critical questions belonging to the specific argumentation scheme.

Formulating a linking premise with that says Q conveys the impression of an obvious relationship between the premise and the standpoint. It can therefore be considered to anticipate the critical questions being connected to the relevant symptomatic argumentation scheme.

Is the characteristic expressed in the premise indeed typical of the property expressed in the standpoint? Are there any other characteristics needed in order to be able to determine the property expressed in the standpoint? The first question addresses the issue of whether a relationship between the premise and the standpoint can be considered to exist at all.

In other words: it asks whether the premise does indeed offer relevant support for the standpoint. As all instantiations of the pattern that says Q explicitly state that there is a link between the premise and the standpoint, they all convey the meaning that this link is relevant.

Nevertheless, an arguer could surely be wrong in assuming that any opponent would agree that there is an obvious link between the premise and the standpoint. One of the participants in the web discussion, Think, who was accused of being a racist, responded to the accusation in the following way:. We Argentineans can agree, disagree, be mad at them, hate them or even wish those Britsh squatters dead……but racism? The second question inquires whether the premise necessarily implies the standpoint to which it is attached.

Or, in other words, it asks whether the conclusion that is suggested to follow from the premise is the best conclusion that can be drawn from it. This question allows for the fact that a relationship may indeed exist between the premise and the standpoint, but it raises the issue that another standpoint could be a better match for the premise and might therefore rule out the original standpoint. All instantiations of that says Q with positive polarity suggest that the premise necessarily implies the standpoint.

But the ones expressing the strongest degree of justificatory power also suggest that this connection is so strong that it is very unlikely that the premise would support a different standpoint equally well or even better.

If an antagonist does not agree with that, it would be a derailment to have implied that the link between the premise and the standpoint is obvious.

The third question pertains to the degree of justificatory force of the premise by asking whether the premise offers sufficient proof. If an antagonist objected to an affirmative answer to this critical question, the clothing of that says Q would have been used falsely.

These are therefore less likely candidates for an incorrect application of the argumentation scheme. The critical questions relevant to an argumentation scheme are primarily used to detect fallacies concerning an incorrect application of such a scheme.

If a symptomatic argument does not fulfil the requirements specified in the critical questions, it violates the eighth discussion rule and constitutes the fallacy of an incorrectly applied symptomatic argumentation scheme. In my opinion, however, wrongly formulating an explicit linking premise in the clothing of that says Q involves more than just an incorrect application of the argumentation scheme. Presenting something as self-evident amounts to presenting something as a generally accepted starting point.

In my view, therefore, the fallacy that covers such a manoeuvre is the fallacy of unjustly putting forward the linking premise as a common starting point. This is a violation of pragma-dialectical discussion rule 6: Footnote Discussants may not falsely present something as an accepted starting point or falsely deny that something is an accepted starting point van Eemeren and Grootendorst , p.

Footnote 22 Three classes of criticisms can be detected that are related to the critical questions discussed in the previous section. An example is 16 , containing a comment posted in response to a discussion that arose from a story about a family living on an income of 60, lb and having financial problems:. After all, these expressions state that the premise offers hardly any ground for accepting the standpoint.

See for instance the following fragment:. No advance life detected? IT strategy. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes. Image credits. Word of the Day have a heart of gold. Blog Outsets and onsets! Read More. November 08, To top.

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