7 tweets · July 2026 · 29 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
QT is from a conlang. english already has LOTS of short & easy epistemic status tags tho, including many missing here that I call "co-epistemic status tags" like "as you all know", that reflect a theory of mind of the epistemic state of the *listener* wrt the utterance too 🧵
(co-)epistemic status tags include the following long but still totally non-exhaustive list which I wrote on the spot without any help from a robot or a search engine: - obviously - of course - as we all know - as some of you may know - as you can see - as anyone can see - as you might imagine - as you/he/she just noted - as any ethical person would agree - as all the cool kids know - it's widely recognized that - everyone I've talked to agrees that - experts agree that - some experts think that - a wild crackpot theory I read says - as I would frame it - as I see it - in fact - actually - it just occurred to me - upon reflection - suppose that - popularly - I imagine - I had a dream where - I had a thought that - my sense is - my overarching impression is - my gut feeling is - my spidey-senses are telling me - I have some sense that - it seems to me that - as far as I can tell - it looks like - I've heard - I've realized - I've noticed - I witnessed - according to google/wikipedia/claude/a robot - a little bird told me - I heard someone say - I may have misheard but I thought I heard - I took his word for it - if I take your word for it - have you heard that - I read somewhere - studies show - I can tell that - I can't tell that - I have faith that - in my experience - in my many years of experience - I have it on good authority - on the basis of a lot of evidence/research/etc - if you'd seen the evidence, you'd agree - given all I've been through - by my lights - in my opinion - I've been told - you're telling me - you expect me to believe - I can believe it seems that way to you/him/her - it's hard to believe, but - you won't believe it but - nobody else believes me but - I would assume - I had previously assumed - up until now I thought - I'm starting to think that - I could believe that - I'm open to the idea that - I believe what I've read/heard, that - Alice claims - Alice argues - Alice demonstrates - I don't (really) buy it, but Alice says - according to Alice/NewsCorp/a friend I trust/a random tweet I saw today - (idk if it replicated but) there was a study that claimed - I just had a random idea that - I have no idea but / but I have no idea - don't ask me but / but don't ask me - if you grant those premises, then it follows that - after years of careful investigation, I've concluded - I find myself forced to believe that - I see no alternative but - I believe what I've read, that - if you squint you can sort of make out - I heard a compelling explanation that I can't now recall exactly, that - I read a novel where - *bong rip* soo.... - okay so hear me out - I know this sounds crazy but - supposedly - [nothing, unmarked, implies uncontroversial but is often used argumentatively for things that are very controversial. doing so degrades collective sanity, in my view] - in my view - allegedly - apparently ..........(people often say this when they mean "allegedly", which is sloppy and bad according to me) - according to me ..........(note here that "according to me" in the context of the "sloppy and bad" means not merely "as perceived or reasoned by me", but "as judged on the basis of my values" which is certainly a co-morality tag, and is only a co-epistemic status tag to the extent that one has a way to unify is & ought, which I do, but you may not.
in english, you're free to leave these off. supposedly you MUST include one in Láadan… but what if you don't? your sentence still bears all the meaning it did before, just with evidentiality left unmarked… so it's actually just a convention; shorter than english & more limited
by not granting a specific meaning to unmarked, the result in Láadan is imo not better than just "talk in english but you must use a (co)epistemic status tag with every utterance" which is going to be a much easier and more fruitful exercise for most—I recommend it!
writing "I recommend it" while thinking about this, I'm noticing that imperatives also have a wide range of tags, that function in a similar way to frame the situation and relationship of the interlocutors: - I'd like - I'd prefer - I'd strongly prefer - would you - please [verb] - [verb]! / don't [verb] - no [verb]ing! - hey! / no! (as in "stop that") - if you don't mind - if it's all the same to you - it would really mean a lot to me if you would - if it's convenient for you - would you do me the favor of - it'd be nice if you could - it would be good for everybody if you - the team needs you to - for the love of God - go ahead and - it's time to - I'm entitled to - I deserve - if you don't [verb], I'll... - I recommend - I'd have you - I'd encourage you to - I expect you to - I suggest - I advise - I request - I insist - I demand - I command - ideally, you would - you must - you should - you need to - you're going to want to - you're legally required to - it behooves you to ...these have some sense of spectrum but it's definitely more than one axis: 1. strength of imperative 2. space/accommodation of other 3. withdrawal of self (eg "you must" or simply "[verb]" is self-withdrawn; "I insist" is not)
> in a convo about online slang terms, i told my not-super-online friend what “imo” means > and she was like “why would anyone need that? of course it’s your opinion, you said it.” but that's *not* what imo means. it un-bids the statement from consensus
thoughtfully tending the co-epistemic status tags in your writing tends towards thoughtful readers
