Word: context
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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There is more than one way of telling an untruth, but perhaps the most insidious way is that of omission. "The Devil can cite Scripture to his purpose" for this very reason. A statement divorced from its context is often capable of an interpretation that is directly opposed to its real meaning...
...Straton's revised version of his statement, for it undeniably is a revised version, is a true report of what he said for it conveys what he originally meant in its context by the remark quoted by his critics...
...detailed context of Mr. Hanford's article there is little to be said. If a maxim is to be offered it is--"Peruse--and contemplate thereon." One learns that, "examination papers will have to be prepared and graded with especial care"; that regular tutorial reading in addition to course reading will continue during the Reading Period--a fact not plainly understood heretofore; that the Library is making plans so as to be able to meet the increasing demands on its shelves; that there will be no "mechanical check on attendance"--possibly the most practical evidence of the University's sincere...
...foolish, attributed to me in these diaries. But that is the way of most diarists, and I have suffered a good deal in the last few years from a variety of them. Words used in jest are treated as if in earnest; words seriously used are torn from their context and therefore having a different meaning, the essentially qualifying phrases invariably being omitted; and then in the inevitable defects of human memory when sentences taken from conversations which lasted an hour or two are casually recorded by men more or less prejudiced...
...eager eyes of men who operate financial news tickers singled out these words, lifted, them from their context and flashed them all over the country to men who speculate in cotton. At once a blizzard of cotton-selling began. In one day's trading, cotton prices dropped off $5.50 to $6 per bale. With 20 million bales the prospective total of their current crop, U. S. cotton growers found themselves some $90,000,000 poorer overnight. Speculators on the "long" side of a previously rising market found themselves sore stranded...