> This, what you're talking about here, gets me into a tangled knot of
> thoughts, which I'm going to try to disentangle. I'm not sure how much
> of these thoughts are relevant to what you're talking about.
>
> First, your example reminds me of a specific instance where I've never
> found adequate words to express the kind of certainty/uncertainty of an
> experience. I'm thinking of an experience that we've probably all had,
> though I sometimes think it occurs to me with a higher-than-average
> frequency (often several times daily): the experience of "seeing"
> someone, only to look again and find it's someone you don't know.
> Let's say the person I didn't actually see is called Jenny.
>
> The problem is, I can't say "I saw Jenny", because it wasn't actually
> her.
>
> I also can't say "I thought I saw Jenny", because that makes it all
> sound too intentional - like I actually believed I saw Jenny till I
> looked again and saw it wasn't her. But that's also wrong, because
> after "seeing" Jenny, I was aware that, given the briefness of the
> "seeing", and the frequency with which I mistakenly "see" people, it
> most likely wasn't her.
>
> If I say "I saw someone who looked like Jenny", that makes it sound
> like I knew all along that it wasn't Jenny, but that I saw someone and
> observed that they bore a resemblance to Jenny.
>
> Another interesting kind of uncertainty: remembering an event, but not
> recalling of the main character in it is yourself or someone else. I
> find this occasionally - I will be telling a friend about something
> that I remember, and I will remember the event, and that I was present,
> but I can't remember what role I played, if I was a main character, or
> just an observer.
>
> Estel
>
> --- Nick Maclaren wrote:
> (...)
>
> > In "I saw the rabbit", it is easy to express an uncertainty of
> > detail on "rabbit", such as by "something rabbitlike". Similarly,
> > one can express uncertainty of event on the whole sentence by
> > prefixing it by "I think that". But how do you express
> > uncertainty of either detail or event on "saw" in a way that is
> > practical for use in speech?
> >
> > "I either saw or otherwise perceived the rabbit". But even that
> > does not distinguish "seeing or hearing" from "seeing or having a
> > (perhaps mistaken) visual impression of". And what about "saw or
> > had a visual memory of (perhaps a vivid dream)"? All of these are
> > uncertainty concepts that are very hard to express in English, but
> > which I find that I want to use.
>
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