All of the cargo ships of the Blue Star Line are over 100 meters long, and all of its passenger ships are under 100 m...
MazenFebruary 18, 2020
Diagramming a specific sentence: "All the passenger and cargo...after 1980."
Hello,
Regarding the following sentence: "All of the passenger and cargo ships of the Gold Star line were built after 1980,..."
The video diagram ignores the distinction between "passenger and cargo" and treats both as "ships of the Gold Star line." I understand that. However, as I put a bit more thought into it, I come to the conclusion that, IN THIS CASE/STIMULUS, even though the sentence as stated in the stimulus uses "and" between "cargo" and "passenger," we should treat the "and" as "or" because of the overall big picture:
GSL--------> after 1980 (positive);
before or in 1980 (i.e. ~~after 1980)---------> ~~GSL (contrapositive)
SIMILARLY,
cargo GSL or passenger GSL----------> after 1980
~~after 1980----------> ~~cargo GSL and ~~passenger GSL
This sentence, I feel, is logically analogous to one of the drills: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity..." __ Albert Einstein
If something is infinite, then it is the universe OR (not and as used in the quote) human stupidity. Even though there is an "and" between the "universe" and "human stupidity" in Einstein's words, the overall meaning would be distorted unless we treat "and" logically to mean "or."
Is my reasoning sound?
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@Mazen, your reasoning makes sense. Note that for the sentence about ships, the two ways of writing the conditional statement effectively mean the same thing. You'll find that it's not uncommon to come across a sentence that can be diagrammed in two different ways, as you did with the ship sentence above. That said, these ways both basically mean the same thing, so either way will suffice for arriving at the correct answer.
Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other questions!
