On the PBS NewsHour tonight, Amna Nawaz and Nick Schifrin both said that Joe Kent refuted the current occupant’s claims about an imminent Iranian threat and a clear path to victory. No, Kent rebutted those claims.
From Garner’s Modern English Usage :
Rebut means “to attempt to refute.” Refute means “to defeat (an opponent’s arguments).” Hence someone who rebuts certainly hopes to refute ; it is immodest to assume, however, that one has refuted another’s arguments.*
Thanks to a comment, I realized this morning that the word I needed is reject . Kent didn’t rebut anything; he only asserted that the current occupant’s claims were lies.
(And yes, Kent’s letter has a place in “the long tradition of conspiratorial anti-Semitism.”)
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comments: 2
In news articles, I often read of someone "refuting" something when all they did was deny it. I think of the following on a continuum from least to most persuasive --deny, rebut, refute.
You’ve made me realize that the word I really wanted was reject , since all Kent did was assert that the current occupant’s claims were false.
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