4.3. Degrees of certainty

| Chapter 4: Kinds |

| 4.3. Degrees of certainty

When we write:

> A dead end is usually dark.

we are saying that it will be dark rather than lighted unless we should specify otherwise. So it would be fine to add:

> The Tortuous Alcove is lighted.

because although dead ends are usually dark, this one is evidently an exception. On the other hand, if we had originally written

> A dead end is always dark.

then Inform would not have permitted any exception to be made, and would have reported a problem if we had tried to make the Tortuous Alcove lighted. Besides "usually" and "always", we can also employ "seldom" and "never", which are their negatives. Thus, "never lighted" means the same as "always dark".

42
| Example Something Narsty A staircase always open and never openable. |
RB

43
| Example Odin Replacing "You see nothing special..." with a different default message for looking at something nondescript. |
RB

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