The Art of Description

"Master, when people describe an event to one another, why do contradictions or misunderstandings always arise and lead to arguments?"

"That has to do with both description and comprehension. Description requires a certain logic, while comprehension only requires understanding the meaning.

If there are two people of the same gender in an event, you cannot use broad terms to skip over them in your description.

For example, if there are two women or two men, you cannot just call them 'the man' or 'the woman.' Otherwise, the speaker knows who they mean, but the listener will not understand. Only when there is one man and one woman can you use labels like 'the man' and 'the woman.'

For instance, there are two men and one woman in an event. You describe it like this: 'That man came looking for me. That woman went and found another man. That man lives near me.'

That would all get muddled together, and people would not be able to tell which man was which.

Only when there is one man and one woman is there no problem. The man says, 'Hello.' The woman says, 'Thank you.'

But if you add another woman, then the man says, 'Hello.' The woman says, 'Thank you.' The woman says, 'Not bad.'

Then the listener would have no way of telling which woman said which sentence.

Example two:

I have one biological father and two godfathers. They are all called Dad.

I say, 'My dad told me to eat.' My dad says, 'Don't eat yet. Wait a while. What time is it?' My dad says, 'What do you mean, what time is it? The kid's hungry, so let him eat.'

Tell me, other than the people involved in the event, who could tell which dad was which dad? No