[Ads-l] Quote Origin: It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Laurence Horn wrote:
> Amazing.  Seems like a close competition.  I'd vote for
> "It is better to be exactly right than vaguely wrong".
> That one doesn’t seem to have caught on, though.

I agree with you, LH, that the combination you mention is the clearest.
Yet, the two popular divergent adages remind me of the statement
popularized by physicist Niels Bohr who labeled it an “old saying” in
an essay published in 1949:

[Begin excerpt]
… the so-called “deep truths,” are statements in which the opposite
also contains deep truth.
[End excerpt]

Bohr's remark was not aimed at logicians.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/11/02/deep-truths/

Garson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org