| Lawlight said: Sure.... except in this case. You got caught with your pants down and are refusing to say that you were wrong in using that word in that context. No, you weren't saying it in the context of a judicial case or law. |
Lol @ except in this case. In EVERY case a word in a particular sentence has one specific meaning. And the job of the reader is to determine which of the possible usages is appropriate, based on the context. There's nothing special about this case. Oh the silly things you say in your dogged determination to prove me wrong. It's actually kind of adorable at this point <3.
Anyways, the way people attempt to prove an argument in most contexts is analogous to the methods you would use in court. You provide data to back up your assertions... I mean, maybe you don't, but some of us do. That's why some legal terms have bled into everyday language. For example, "Paul Perkins made his case that he should be a starter", or "the jury is still out on corporate short termism", or "evidence suggests that Apple is working on the biggest mobile game". All of these are actual examples of writers using courtroom terminology in non-courtroom situations. If you've never heard the word evidence used in the manner I used it outside of courtroom situations, then I'm sorry that you're not very well read.
If you want to be anal about whether or not this is a court case (and clearly, you love to be anal), then we could use this definition that conveys the same idea but makes it applicable to situations outside court. "Evidence is anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened." (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/) Same gist, but not specific to court.
And of course, I can actually demonstrate that your suggestion that I was using synonym to be proof is wrong. We can use the same technique that I go over with third graders. Simply replace the word with each possible meaning. I ended my post by saying, "The evidence suggests that Disney was not anti-semitic". If we replace the word evidence with proof, that becomes "the proof suggests that Disney was not antisemitic" that would make no sense. Proof doesn't suggest. It proves. If we replace the word evidence with "information presented in a case", then we get "The information presented in this case suggests that Disney was not anti-semitic". This makes perfect sense. Bubble in A on your answer sheet.
Secondly, the main idea (identifying the main idea is also a skill you should have learned at some point in elementary school) is clearly that Walt Disney was not an anti-semite (pro-tip: In an persuasive essay, the conclusion usually tells you the main idea!). If I were making this case, then claiming there was "proof" that Disney was an anti-semite would contradict everything else I said. The other usage does not contradict the rest of the post, so we can say that that is the intended meaning. If one usage doesn't make sense, and one does, the one that makes sense is most likely the intended usage.











