‘Argue That’

I’ve never seen the phrase “argue that p” used this way. I’d guess it’s a typo or editing goof of some kind.

The sentence should read: “…few would dispute”.

These types of errors are now rampant, and cause me to wonder whether English is any longer the native language of Americans. I read an advertisement last week in which one was urged to purchase carpet, in order to be “prideful” of one’s home.

American Heritage supplies this definition for the transitive form, among others:

To put forth reasons for or against; debate: “It is time to stop arguing tax-rate reductions and to enact them” (Paul Craig Roberts).

As others have mentioned, it’s a marginally acceptable usage (Webster’s 1913 suggests that “argue” in transitive form should only be used when supporting the proposition; this icky usage is more inline with “debate”); if I were to see it on a student paper, I’d have to correct it or indicate it needs correction, as it’s far too ambiguous.

That said, I had no trouble discerning the meaning at full speed. Context is a wonderful thing.

I had not heard this idiom before, but a Google search for “few would argue that” shows that lots of people use it. For example, all of the following pages use “few would argue that” to mean “few would dispute that.” (Of course, there are also plenty of pages using the same phrase to mean “few would contend that.”)

Someone with access to Lexis should run a search to see if any reputable media use the phrase this way.

“Few would argue that A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson was ahead of his time”

“few would argue that the metropolis has shaped, and continues to shape, the face of Western civilization perhaps more than any other influence”

“few would argue that the NCAA post-season football environment is a mess”

“Few would argue that the most successful Canadian performance-artists in recent years are Parizeau and Bouchard who combine the comedic talents of Laurel and Hardy with the political sophistication of Abbot and Costello”

“But few would argue that it has become an enormously powerful tool”

What speech and utterance mean has become more a matter of broad context than precision and nuance. The American public conversation is losing its resolution. Details are ignored as unimportant. The anti-intellectualism that was fostered so eagerly in the four decades of television’s inveigling have begun to pay off handsomely.
Only large obvious things get communicated. The truth being sometimes more complicated, more intricate, deception has the advantage.
I could care less. I couldn’t care less.

We’ve settled the question of grammar, but what about the one of truth? I would certainly dispute that children should be “protected” from pornography. Are we few?

I’ve seen this a few times in newspapers and even more often in student papers. Combined with the new use of ‘rebut’ to mean ‘says something, anything, in response’ rather than ‘successfully (or at least cogently) respond’, I worry that ‘argue that’ reflects the new American anti-intellectualism where all arguments are equally good and its just –as undergraduate papers so often conclude– a matter of preference which one accepts.

Of course, I’ve also thought that the now standard use of ‘begs the question’ to mean ‘raises the question’ reflects a similar rise in laziness and hostility toward actually evaluating arguments. (more on my blog)

I’ve seen this a few times in newspapers and even more often in student papers. Combined with the new use of ‘rebut’ to mean ‘says something, anything, in response’ rather than ‘successfully (or at least cogently) respond’, I worry that ‘argue that’ reflects the new American anti-intellectualism where all arguments are equally good and its just –as undergraduate papers so often conclude– a matter of preference which one accepts.

Of course, I’ve also thought that the now standard use of ‘begs the question’ to mean ‘raises the question’ reflects a similar rise in laziness and hostility toward actually evaluating arguments.

“Of course, I’ve also thought that the now standard use of ‘begs the question’ to mean ‘raises the question’ reflects a similar rise in laziness and hostility toward actually evaluating arguments.”

That’s an interesting point – hadn’t thought of that.

“it’s awkward and peculiar, but that it’s a legitimate usage…It’s sort of similar in it’s wrongness to “I could care less”,”

But…if it’s awkward and peculiar, and says the opposite of what it intends to say (‘argue that’ is indeed the opposite of ‘argue that…not’), and is wrong in the way ‘I could care less’ is wrong – then what does ‘legitimate’ mean in that sentence? That’s a real question, not a rhetorical one. Does it mean a lot of people say it? That’s already been conceded. Or does it mean something more like ‘it does the job even if it does it clumsily’? If so – is that what ‘legitimate’ ought to mean? Doesn’t that word confer legitimacy where it ought not to be conferred – on the idea that a word that means the opposite of what you want to say will convey your meaning all the same?

Part of my point is that the usage is actually confusing, and that confusion is not particularly helpful, especially in argument.

“These types of errors are now rampant, and cause me to wonder whether English is any longer the native language of Americans.”

Few would argue that prescriptivism is an important intellectual and moral force preserving our language from abject debasement.

“Argument” is a close synomyn for “dispute”, in one of its senses: e.g. “marital argument”. So whereas the use of “dispute” would be clearer and stylistically better, there is, in fact, nothing semantically wrong with the use in the cited sentence.

Not knowing much about English, I assumed al variants of argue had a positive and negative meaning. “Having an argument” is as far as i know mostly negative. Argue, arguing and argument can all be used in a positive or negative way.

So why make it difficult and irregular by restricting the meaning of “to argue that” to only the positive case?

The removal of insoluble ambiguities is an admirable, necessary labor. Equivalent to opening gallon cans of peaches in mess hall kitchens under battlefield conditions.
–
Clarity in speech begets clarity in thought begets clarity in decision begets clarity in action begets…well yeah.

On the English language: “Another will say it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise that it wanteth not grammar. For grammar it might have, but it needs it not…”

–Sir Philip Sidney

Ophelia: What Neudoxis said.

Also, your use of the phrase “insoluble ambiguity” is a bit strained, I think. In your examples, sure, there is insoluble ambiguity. But sentences rarely appear in isolation. Instead, they almost invariably exist in context, allowing us to resolve ambiguity. Just to cite the current example, while this admittedly sloppy (but in 100 years, possibly completely legitimate) usage caused some head scratching re dialects and acceptable usage, no one failed to get what the writer meant. It’s the same with the now almost interchangeable phrases “Could/couldn’t care less.” We understand what the writer/speaker means. That’s just the way language is.

Legitimacy isn’t predicated on ambiguity, it’s predicated on people understanding you – and in language, the lack of the former doesn’t necessarily result in the lack of the latter.

I will grant, though, that journalists and sub-editors should, while avoiding pedantry and prescriptiveness, also avoid sloppiness.

Lance: Is it really a given that “clarity in speech begets clarity in thought begets clarity in decision begets clarity in action”? That’s not a rhetorical question. I can imagine many instances in which clear actions, decisions and thoughts are generated by people who may not be the clearest of speakers. Likewise, lots of people talk a good game yet manage not to make good decisions and deliver good actions.

Of course, I’ve also thought that the now standard use of ‘begs the question’ to mean ‘raises the question’ reflects a similar rise in laziness and hostility toward actually evaluating arguments.

This is anecdote rather than evidence, but personally I’m more than happy to use “beg the question” to mean “raise the question” (though never in mixed company, of course – ie a group that includes prescriptivists), yet there are few things I enjoy more than a good argument (what I think the Italians would call discuzzione) and the point-by-point dissection thereof.

It may be just a touch snobbish to imagine that those who don’t use evolving phrases in their old ways necessarily lack your capacity for complex thought. They may be less educated, of course. Or they may just be either younger, more relaxed, or trained in linguistics. (That’s not to say that most undergrads aren’t lazy gobshites, though.)

While we’re on the subject of peeves, I’d like to add that in no way can “argue” be considered a typo for “dispute.” “Dispuge” or “dis[ute” would be typos. Typing “argue” when you mean “dispute” is a braino, or what is referred to technically as a mistake.

(Writing about mistakes in writing, of course, is the literary equivalent of shouting “Watch this!” before performing a frisbee trick. No matter how many times I preview, I’m sure there’s something egregiously stupid in this post.)

Is is just me, or doesn’t anyone else notice another blooper in this sentence? Without a second comma to set off the phrase “the law designed to protect them,” the sense of the appositive is lost. As written, the passage declares COPA to be another name for internet pornography, not another name for the law designed to protect children from said porn.

Inaccurate usages indeed are increasing in the U.S., as any review of comparable U.K. publications daily reveals. As such usages multiply, they eradicate larger swathes of meaning. Reading should not require the ingenuity necessarily expended upon a text redacted by the FBI.

Context, the salvation grasped by several above, ultimately becomes impossible. Not only can readers not decode multiple ambiguities, they cannot divine a meaning that the writer was too incoherent to form. The very process of clear writing sharpens thought, and the reverse is also painfully true.

I also topically note that ambiguous usage is favored by demagogues: a tool of mass manipulation doubles as a shield of purported “misunderstanding,” if challenged. Define “terrorist” for me, or — for that matter — “war.”

Ruth: you are so right about that missing comma!

On ambiguity and context. Yes, we’re clever enough to work out what that sentence really means despite its ambiguity. But we shouldn’t have to. This usage is wrong (whatever the definition of ‘argue that’) because it’s confusing, not because it’s a new usage. There is no need for ambiguity here because a word is available (ie, dispute) that would make the meaning perfectly clear. Clarity can be bloody hard to achieve, ambiguity sometimes is inevitable, but not here. And just because something is difficult is no excuse not to bother. I’m all for language evolving, and I’m not one of those who bemoans every shift in use (‘I could care less’? Actually, I couldn’t care less. ‘Begs the question’? I’d use it the new way myself – insofar as I’d use it at all.) But when a change introduces ambiguity and uncertainty that wasn’t there before, and doesn’t need to be there at all, that’s unacceptable. Especially (to return to the question of context) when we are talking about usage in formal written contexts by professionals who are paid to communicate.

“it’s only the particular phrase “few would argue that” that has evolved into a meaning that is normally used only with the intransitive form. It sounds terribly awkard to us who would never use it that way, but it’s becoming fairly common and may eventually be considered proper usage.”

Well, that’s true, the ‘few’ does serve as a marker, so in that sense my examples were beside the point. But problems remain. For one thing, if that is what that has come to mean, that means that we can’t say what it ought to mean or at least used to mean (and still does mean as far as I’m concerned). I.e. we can’t say, oh –

Few would argue that Hitler had the right idea.

And that’s not a trivial point, because that is something one might want to say, after all. And I don’t see why the forces for confusion get to hijack it to mean the opposite when all they have to do is add a negative word to the clause to make it mean what they want it to mean without taking the phrase away from the rest of us.

And for a second thing, since there hasn’t been a formal treaty establishing the new meaning, it’s quite confusing – which addresses the ambiguity and context point that Eve and others raised. Yes, we can figure out what is meant, at least much of the time – but it takes longer, it impedes clarity and speed of comprehension. So it’s a bad thing. Surely it’s better, when possible, simply to say what you mean clearly so that your listeners don’t need to pause and think ‘Now does she mean “argue that” or “argue that not”?’ Of course ambiguity is not always avoidable, but I don’t see any point in actually welcoming new unnecessary introduced ambiguity.

For one thing, if that is what that has come to mean, that means that we can’t say what it ought to mean or at least used to mean (and still does mean as far as I’m concerned). I.e. we can’t say, oh –

Few would argue that Hitler had the right idea.

And that’s not a trivial point, because that is something one might want to say, after all.

What about “Not many would argue…”. I´m not a native speaker and this may sound terribly wrong, but I doubt it´s impossible to find a substitute for the old meaning.

I found a nice article on the issue of prescriptivism vs descriptivism on the homepage of the Linguistic Society of America. Here´s a nice quote:

So what is right and wrong in language, and who decides? Some observers claim that the real issue about linguistic right and wrong is one of deciding who wields power and who doesn’t. Viewing language as a form of cultural capital, they note that stigmatized forms are typically those used by social groups other than the educated middle classes–professional people, including those in law, medicine, and publishing. Linguists generally would argue that the language of educated middle-class speakers is not better (or worse) than the language of other social groups, any more than Spanish, say, is better or worse than French, Navaho better or worse than Comanche, or Japanese better or worse than Chinese. They would acknowledge that some standardization of form is useful for the variety of a language used, especially in print. They would also insist, however, that expressions appearing in dictionaries and grammars are not the only grammatical forms and may not be suitable for use in all circumstances. They are merely the ones designated for use in circumstances of wider communication.

Sorry, but I can’t see this as a prescriptivist vs. descriptionist thing.

This is not in the same category as using adjectives instead of adverbs, or using “Hopefully” to mean “I hope that” or “Nucular” instead of “nuclear” or even “like” as in “Bush, like, lied”.

This is saying something that means the opposite of what it seems to mean. This is a functional problem, which puts it in a different category altogether. It is the same category as “I could care less” to mean “I couldn’t care less”. And you’ll never catch me doing it. Of course, I’m an engineer and a programmer by trade, and precise use of language, though usually of programming languages, is a professional skill.