Vague Statements

A vague statement is a phrase that doesn’t capture all the details. When a vague statement is being said there can be more than one interpretation behind it. Sometimes this is good when a subject is brought up and people are not comfortable with telling the whole truth. A vague statement is good for answering questions such as how much a person makes or how much someone purchased an item for.

Vague statements aren’t good for when a person is giving directions to somebody or trying to describe something. If a police officer questioned a person about a robbery and said the burglar was tall, it would not help out the investigation. Tall can be interpreted in a lot of ways. What’s tall to a person of average height wouldn’t be the same as what’s tall to Lebron James. So if a person told the investigator that the burglar was tall he can’t really get a detailed description of a person. Or worst yet the investigator could arrest someone who he thought was tall even though the person who an eyewitness was thought was short.

There are times when it is acceptable to use vague statements. Most of the time when communicating with one another it is good to use statements that are not vague so that we are able to get our point across clearly.