"John McCoy" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Pawlowski wrote in
:

On 4/15/2015 5:46 PM, John McCoy wrote:

In some contexts, "quality" means "fitness for a certain
purpose". In this case the older product was more fit for
Bill's purpose, and thus the newer is of lower quality.

A quality item (an item that has quality) has the ability to perform
satisfactorily in service and is suitable for its intended purpose.
It may not suite Bill's need, but if the new design performs to the
now intended purpose, it is of equal quality.

Quality is a subjective term - what one person perceives is
not what another would. For instance, Bill would probably
perceive my prior post as low-quality, because I typed "Bill"
where I should have typed "Bob". You might consider it to
be of adequate quality, because it conveyed the information
it was intended to, irrespective of the name used.

Apropos of the drill press, it's fair for Bob to say it's of
lower quality, because it's less fit for his purposes. It's
not capable of performing with an accessory that's commonly
used with a drill press (to wit, anything with a morse taper).
Someone else who doesn't use such accessories would likely
say the drill press has adequate quality.

John

Jim,

That was hysterical.

Sincerely,
Bill