First I consider the time-binding record for "fact" and "opinion". Then I look at the context. Finally, I look at past communicitations with the individual using the terms, thus taking into consideration three levels of multi-meaning: Dictionary, Context, and Idiosyncratic (as inferred by personal time-binding history).

If you are talking about putative "events" in situations where the the terms 'fact' and 'opinion' are not actually used, that "is" a different story. Now we have to look at the afforementioned "definitions", in the context, and make a personal judgement as to which term to apply.

In the case of the term 'fact', common ussages include both as a reference to a putative "event" (known or otherwise) as well as to a statement or assertion as to such a putative event. In both cases a person asserts something about what is going on (has gone on). How can you tell if they are reporting an observation, or they are making an inferencet about their experiences, or even simply making something up? It's still personal judgement about another's actions.

I would not use indexicals or demonstractives in a statement alegged to be a fact or to represent a fact. I would use explicit indices, date, time, place.

Pardon me for being "picky", but I had a very good English teacher during my high school years.

Indirect quote: John said this pencil is long.
Direct quote: John said "This pencil is long".

The first we assume to be transparent, in that the indirect quote is about the pencil and a characteristic named "long".

The second we assume to be opague, in that the direct quote is about an utteance.

The technical difference is the presence or absence of explicit quotation marks around the utterance.

The sentence, "John said this pencil is long.", is not about what the sentence "John said 'This pencil is long'." is about.

Since we general semanticists are supposed to be particularly aware of using quotation marks, we ought to be a particular and precise about making sure we properly punctuate a direct and an indirect quote.

So, I "assume" that Ben left out the missing quotation marks inadvertently.

"John reported the length classification of this pencil as long using the previously provided definition of 'long'." is a statement of fact that is transparent about the pencil's length relative to the classification system used. It can be rechecked by another observer.

But without a prior classification system to "pin down" the "meaning" of the term 'long', it, can not serve as an explicit category in a classification system.

Prepare three small buckets of water, at three significantly different temperatures, "hot", "lukewarm", and "cold". Soak your two hands simultaneously, one in the "cold" bucket and one in the "warm" bucket long enough to habituate to the temperature. Then plunge both hands into the "lukewarm" bucket. Perhaps one will feel "long" and the other will feel "short". [Devise your own analogy.]

It was a hot summer day at the picnic. Everyone wanted cool drinks, but the only ice was a large block. John rushed into the house to get an icepick. On his way back, he slipped and fell into the crowd of picnicers, and, in the process of falling, stabbed his neighbor's leg with the ice pick. It made a scratch, but not a long one.

Ben previously wrote, I could make the second statement factual by saying "John says this pencil is long." This new statement doesn't say anything 'about' the pencil, but instead 'about' John (or 'about' what John said).

Ben claimed the new sentence to be factual, namely "John says this pencil is long.", which is an indirect quote - not a direct quote - of John's words, because, in Ben's very words, "This new statement doesn't say anything 'about' the pencil, but instead 'about' John (or 'about' what John said). Ben has equated an indirect quote with the explanation of a direct quote. A direct quote requires that the actual words spoken be used and quoted, So the sentence would have to be punctuated as: "John says, 'This pencil is long.'" It was not.

Ben later wrote, "John said this pencil is long." <-- This statement reports John's opinion.

"John said 'This pencil is long.'" <-- This statement reports what John specifically said (as well as his opinion).

Only half right. It uses invalid (unsane) logic.

"Quoted sentences" are opague; we can not validly infer that they accurately "mean" what we might assign to the quoted words. There are numerous examples in philosophical literature to show why this is so.

John saw Mary with Dick, who was not Mary's husband. John did not know this. John, assuming that Dick was Mary's husband, asked of another who Mary's husband was. The other said, "Mary's husband is Bob", where upon John said, "Bob is quite tall, isn't he.".

In John's sentences, John is talking about Bill, not Mary's husband Bob. The quotations are opague, so we may not infer that John's saying "this pencil is long", a direct quote, represents John's opinion, (although it might).

In probabalistic terms, direct quotations often do correlate with the equivalent indirect quote, so if we take a guess that the quoted sentence may be taken transparently, we will more likely be correct than wrong. But we cannot treat this as so "100 percent of the time", as the above example illustrates. "Sane" reasoning, using only valid logic, cautions us to be aware that treating opague contex as if it were transparent is a probabilistic correlation, not a "truth preserving" one. We may assume it's so in any given instance, but we must, like any other map-territory relationship, be prepared for this map to be wrong. Mary was not with her husband, although John assumed she was, and his conversation did not give him any contrary evidence, so the direct quote of his words were not about Bob. John's statement, "Bob is quite tall", was not about Bob, so it did not represent his opinion about Bob.

Ben,

You are correct. You have missed my point.

The distinction is between an indirect quote and a direct quote. You made an indirect quote, but you attributed to it the property of a direct quote.

You write Charles replies, "John said this pencil is long."

This sentence is a direct quote that contains an indirect quote.

What you wrote is a direct quote of what Charles said. Accepting the quote as meaning the conventional interpretation of the words in the quote of Charles is taking Charles words as "transparent", that is, that what they mean to us, the reader, is what they meant to Charles, the speaker. That is what "transparency" means. But direct quotes are not "transparent"; only "indirect" quotes are transparent.

The transparent phraseology would be Charles said that John said that the pencil was long.

Let me try another tack. I'll indicate levels of abstraction with distinct markers.

(Charles replies, ["John said {this pencil is long}."])

"{}" encloses an indirect quote. It has tranparency only one level up. Someone may abstract from the actual words John used and arrive at the words in the indirect quote. In other words, in an indirect quote of John, we may reasonably infer that the words used in the indirect quote paraphrase in some way what John said - that we can abstract the meaning of the paraphrase from the meaning of the words John used.

"[]" enclose a direct quote; we are not entitled to infer that what those words mean to Charles matches what they mean to us.

Philosophy has shown examples that disconfirm that theory. But, because people much more often than not stick with fairly conventional meanings, the probability is fairly high that the "transparent" interpretation is often the correct one. But logically it not a valid inference, because there are counter-examples; the "theory" that direct quotes may (always) be taken as transparent is disconfirmed.

"()" encloses your assertion, and it is a statement containing a direct quote.

If you had had "Charles replies, 'John said, "This pencil is long."'" you would have had a direct quote of a direct quote. It would be opague all the way down.

If you had had "Charles replied that John said that this pencil is long", you would have had an indirect quote of an indirect quote. It would be transparent all the way down. (Although, general semanticists would see a map of a map each made by different map makers, and would reasonably infer that this transparency might not be depended on.)

In your example, Charles was clearly sent to the dean for repeated tardiness. John's answer could indicate that he was mentally low functional and could only remember the last part of John's tirade, that is, assuming that Charles even got John's name right, especially since he had been using the same false excuse. It could also indicate that Charles knows full well why he is being sent, but he's "playing dumb" on purpose, so as not to be "putting himself on report".

In any event, you have provide a direct quote of Charles, and we cannot reliably conclude that what Charles actually said accurately reflects "the facts" of the matter. Such is the nature of a direct quote.

Indexicals are words like 'I', 'You', etc., which depend on context.
Demonstractives are words like 'this', 'that', etc; they also depend on context.

Thomas,
There is a philosophical difference between "a statement of 'fact'" (a map) and "the 'fact' of the matter" (the territory); the former is an assertion alegging to describe a statement while the later is purportedly about an event or a condition.

Whatever way they are stated, the common meaning of "fact" is about an event or state of affairs in the world. Aside from the ambiguity between map and territory, as in "statement of fact" and "fact of the matter" respecively, "fact" when properly used is not multi-ordinal, It can be used only at two specific levels of abstraction, and both of these are "at low levels". (Recall, that I am now talking about formulations that use the word 'fact'.)

The term 'opinion' always applies to indicate what a person thinks or believes (territory), expert or not. It can also apply to a statement (map) uttered by a person. Consequently both 'fact' and 'opinion' can be used about both "territory" and (verbal) "map".

When a person uses the term 'fact' it is nigh always in a context that refers to a territory or to a statement about the territory.

Such and such is a fact - about the territory.
"Such and such" states a fact - about the language about the territory.

Neither of these uses is multi-ordinal, because they do not ambigously cover different levels of abstraction.

Now, if we are to take statements that do not use the word 'fact', and attempt to evaluate in some way whether or not to classify the statement in terms of a presumed distinction identified by the terms 'fact' and 'opinion', that is an exercise in applying concepts by intuition, both of which "fact" and "opinion" are. Since these "concepts" are not defined explicitly by postulate formulations, any evaluation based on the presumed distinction, will significantly depend on the idiosyncratic interpretation by the person doing the evaluation. They will, however be abstracting from a statement or statements made by persons - usually in the form of an assertion about what is going on. Those assertions can be at any level of abstraction.

Consider "E=MC²". Here we have a very abstract theory statement that has been strongly corroborated. Do we classify it as a statement of "fact"? or a statement of "opinion"? This is not an observation statement; it is a relation statement in a theory of the world. As such it would only qualify as an "opinion" (believed rather strongly by most now-a-days). Remember, it is not "confirmed"; it is merly "corroborated" by many individual observations, each of which, by the way, would qualify as a "fact" or as a "statement of fact" (all the individual experiments designed to disprove the theory).

Consequenly, there is a strong correlation between the (proper) use of the terms 'fact' and 'opinion' with "observation statements" and "theory statement" respectively in our current model of science. Since "'fact' of the matter" is about what is going on - a metaphysical statement, we general semanticss - mired in the epistemological - fearing to tread in the metaphysical - would presumably not make such statements. We "ought" to be speaking about "statements of 'fact'" exclusively.

Now-a-days I think I rarely use 'fact' without a qualifier. I use 'alegged' and 'putative'.

Ben, you wrote

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quote:

I could make the second statement factual by saying "John says this pencil is long." This new statement doesn't say anything 'about' the pencil, but instead 'about' John (or 'about' what John said).

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Theh time-binding record for "fact" and "opinion" gives us many way of distinguishing between these concepts by intuition.

An opinion is at a higher level of abstraction than a "fact". "Facts" only reside at the lowest level of abstraction.