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Why it pays to hedge your bets in English. «Native speakers plant these little hedges in their speech all the time, but this seemingly insignificant, meaningless chatter is very hard to master, even for an upper-intermediate level student. The phrases are just not that intuitive; they don't trip off the tongue. »
Objection 1: Hedging is just a pretentious linguistic term for sloppy language and should not be encouraged.
Boy, not for me! I use hedge language very precisely. For example:
It is believed that a Spanish galleon lies submerged beneath the waters of California's Salton Sea, the remains of a ship that sailed up the Colorado River and ran aground before a subsequent earthquake closed the passage from the Sea of Cortez and allowed the Mojave Desert to dry out.
This allows me to bring up a bit of amusing mythology for subsequent discussion. Often someone who thinks I'm being sloppy assumes I actually believe such things myself, but closer reading makes it clear that I've made no such claim; it is believed, just not by me.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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