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Thirty or more

Posted by Fred on December 03, 2003

In Reply to: Thirty or more posted by Henry on December 03, 2003

: : what does this mean:
: : "she's thirty if sh's a day"??????

: It means that, as she is certainly more than a day old, she is certainly thirty years old, or more.

I think that the person who says 'She's thirty if she's a day' is really
giving an enthymematic argument. The suppressed premise is 'She's certainly
a day old.' The suppressed conclusion of the argument is 'She's certainly
at least thirty years old.' Logicians use "modus ponens" to refer to this
logically impeccable form of argumentation: T if D; D; so T.

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