This is a special post for quick takes by philh. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
A thing that feels under-discussed when it comes to hedging is, hedging doesn't just have to be swapping from "X" to "I believe X". You can say "the sky looks blue" or "wikipedia says the sky is blue" or "rumor has it the sky is blue" or "IIRC the sky is blue" or "if I did the math right, the sky is blue".
I've seen and taken part in discussions about hedging on LW, but the thing that made me write this comment was a conversation on Duncan Sabien's facebook.
[...]
Interesting question, but nothing comes to mind.
1Andrew Burns
There are lots of language that use a "to-be" copula far less frequently than English. I don't know that it actually affects people's ontologies. It would be evidence in favor of Sapir-Worf if it did.
Weak Sapir Whorf is probably true though. I don't mean in a trivial sense that it has a negligible effect. I think the effect is small but likely measureable. Mainly thru making some social effects more noticeable because easier expressible.