"Unless disputants understand the meaning attached by each other to the terms of a controversy, they may worry along indefinitely without making an inch of progress. The contending parties may think they agree on the proposition, when, as a matter of fact, their apparent agreement is due to ambiguity in the use of the terms. On the other hand, the contending parties may work themselves into a quarrel over imaginary disagreements concerning ideas, when in fact they are merely confused as to the meaning of words. Disputes which seem interminable are sometimes ended abruptly and happily upon the accidental discovery that the parties in dispute agreed all the time as to the real questions at issue, while neither side understood what the other side meant."
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Educators from the United StatesColumbia University alumniHarvard University alumniEconomists from the United StatesPeople from Boston
Original Language: English
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p. 24 ; as cited in: Branham (2013, p. 38)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Trufant_Foster
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William Trufant Foster
(January 18, 1879 – October 8, 1950), was an American educator and economist, whose theories were especially influential in the 1920s. He was the first president of Reed College.
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