Sweeping Statements

In The Reader Over Your Shoulder, Graves and Hodges interpret

"You will find bee-orchids almost anywhere in Devon."

as

--meaning perhaps in a few fields in several parishes in the Torbay district of South Devon.

(Chapter 5, "The Principles of Clear Statement", Principle Four, "There should never be any doubt left as to where something happened or is expected to happen.")

I think of this, now and then, on reading assertions about what everyone does or knows, or about what the culture consists of.