I ran across this phrase twice tonight in comments sections: I suspect that deep down...
I'm going to take a risk here and say that the number of times this is followed by a true statement is vanishingly small. I say that recognising that I've probably written it at some point. I was probably wrong then. It is equivalent to "This is the conventional wisdom among amateur analysts, and I feel it's right."
3 comments:
My father used to say that this phrase was useful when you wanted to skip a tough patch in a proof: "It's intuitively obvious to the most casual observer . . . ."
I suspect that deep down... you're right.
;-)
Kind of like saying "I feel that..." rather than "I think that...". I feel that people do this because other people are less willing to critique feelings rather than thoughts. I further feel that it is nonsense. I feel that what I suspect deep down is what I feel.
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