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Or that the meaning of these phrases has changed over time.



From the abstract:

> This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample


Word. In fact, most of these phrases, to me at least, imply sarcasm.

To say "social science studies are bullshit" implies a more generalized claim to me than "social science studies are always bullshit"

People use overt generalization words like these, in my experience, to indicate generalization with obvious exception.

This study is selecting for precisely the wrong thing, imo, or is not properly interpreting what they've selected.


I'd like to see their analysis of the phrasing on a forum such as this, where one would have to outline the myriad of corner cases and exceptions lest we get speared by the pedantic knights of the internet.




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