Concepts Which Confound

One of the most difficult aspects of serious writing, in whatever field, is untangling concepts -- and making it appear that they are untangled. This week I needed to untangle "things" from "facts" -- partly for the reason that well known writers have strewn the words about like confetti. Add to this terms like "ideas", "constructs", "matters", and so on, and one has to do some hard thinking. Here is a simple answer. When a thing is inserted into a statement (and that statement is true), the statement becomes a fact. A pebble is a thing, while "A pebble sinks" is a fact. Not that everyone calls it a "statement". Try "proposition", "declarative", "assertion", and so on. In fact one needs a little courage to bust through the terminology and say something significant.