Avoiding verbal disputes can require careful attention to the meaning of words.

Question

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A verbal dispute is an apparent disagreement due to two parties each using an ambiguous or otherwise unclear word or phrase in two different ways. If I maintain "John is tall" and you maintain "John is short," we may appear to disagree but would not genuinely disagree if each of us were referring to two different people named John. We would be having a verbal dispute that could have been avoided by our being clear about which of the two Johns we were referring to.

Avoiding Verbal Disputes Can Require Careful Attention to the Meaning