[lbo-talk] The burgeoning US repressive apparatus

[c b]

CB: Actually, Marv said "some 30,000."  This use of "some"  denotes
"an indeterminate number of something".  As an indeterminate number of
something , it would seem to make his statement somewhat equivocal
rather than unequivocal.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some

"Some may refer to:

    * Some, a word denoting an indeterminate number of something: see
Grammatical number"

Dennis Claxton

 Marv Gandall wrote:


> >> "Some 30,000 people are now employed exclusively to listen in on
> phone conversations and other communications in the United States.
> >
> >
> >
> > I'd like to know where that number came from.

Meaning this unequivocal statement : "Some 30,000 people are now
employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other
communications in the United States."

Is based on this equivocal one:

"Beyond all those obstacles loom huge buildings with row after row of
opaque, blast-resistant windows, and behind those are an estimated
30,000 people, many of them reading, listening to and analyzing an
endless flood of intercepted conversations 24 hours a day, seven days
a week."

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/secrets-next-door/print/