Sunday, September 14, 2008

"Even a cursory review reveals"

Even a cursory review of the Federalist Papers will reveal this wasn’t the Founders’ understanding of democracy.

Whenever I've heard people say that something about a book is revealed by "even a cursory review" the implication is that an in-depth review would come away with the same impression about what the book has to say. I guess it is usually the case (at least when it comes to the most important theme or thesis) that an initial impression is correct. But when someone says "even a cursory review reveals" this or that, isn't that person implying that his experience is that initial impressions (the "cursory review") are actually wrong much of the time, at least kinda often? Otherwise why do they say even?

And then again, maybe saying "even a cursory review reveals..." is an admission by the speaker that he didn't read the whole book, and that he's leaving himself an out just in case the cursory review isn't consistent with what an in-depth review would conclude?

No comments: