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Originally Posted by ApK
Why do people, particularly novelists, insist upon saying, "You can't prove a negative?"
That's ridiculous. Of course you can. Sometimes easily. Sometimes you can't, but for that matter, sometimes you can't prove a positive either.
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I'll bite. How? Seriously, what sort of negative do you think you can prove? A positive? If you've done X, chances are, other than obscure things, yu CAN prove it. Paid for something? Proven. Bought something? ditto. Ate a meal that had shellfish in it? Ditto.
But, let's say you get sick at that same restaurant and you end up, 8 hours later, in the ER. How can the restaurant
PROVE that they didn't have shellfish or stock that was made with shellfish, in the meal you ate? It's one thing to say "we didn't..." and even if the entire kitchen swears that they didn't use that fish stock...that's not proof. That's testimony. Not the same thing.
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In a completely unrelated peeve, but one that occurred in the same, otherwise very enjoyable novel:
Writers, don't have the guy check the safety on his Chief's Special .38 revolver. With very rare and extraordinary exceptions, revolvers don't have safeties like that. It completely destroys the otherwise believable story world I was enjoying, and 10 more seconds of research when you picked what kind of gun to include would have shown you that.
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Given the abysmal understanding and treatment of weaponry of all kinds by the vast
VAST majority of writers (both Movies/TV and books), this si hardly shocking and it's almost misses the bar for "insipid and stupid." They just...for people who by and large make their
livings using weapons as props, etc. it's boggling to me that they'll sit there like maroons and have guns that never need reloading, and on and on. Daft.
Hitch