These varying levels of allegiance can often be explained, but they can also be quite arbitrary.
Some of the limits on language, though, can seem quite arbitrary, the writers say.
Rodney Schwartz: Labels are a substantial waste of time and are frankly quite arbitrary.
Expanding on his original statement about "The Goat," he said: "Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances.
Projections are not neutral, natural or 'given': they are constructed, configured, underpinned by various — and quite arbitrary — conventions.
They are also quite arbitrary, plucked out of the air more than a decade ago for the sake of political convenience not economic logic.
In some cases, the opponents have quite arbitrary advantages because not all of the domestic seasons start and end at the same time.
The number of seats allocated to each group is now quite arbitrary since there has been no census in Lebanon since 1932.
While the assignment of animate nouns to such sex-based classes is fairly obvious, the assignment of inanimate nouns is quite arbitrary.
I thought it would be a cathartic project, but I suddenly realised all that suffering was quite arbitrary, and my mum was unlucky to have married him.
