To quort or not to quort?

Time for a new verb: quort.

You know that random person walking down the street? The one that you don't have an idea whether they like the same foods as you do? You shouldn't quort their judgement about what foods you'd like. Your mother, on the other hand... well, you probably should quort her judgement about what you'll like (or, at least, what you'll like if your preferences haven't changed since you were ten), even if you may not quort that she'll actually give you things you like. If the stuff you like isn't healthy, and she's big into healthy food, you should quort that she'll give you things you don't like. If you like healthy stuff and so does she (and you have the same idea of what healthy actually is), you'd quort that she'll give you things that you like. If she cooks by the method of "pick a recipe at random", then unless you like everything, you shouldn't quort that she'll make something you like, nor should you quort that she'll make something you don't like.

But enough about food. At least until lunchtime rolls around. I quort that when I push the power button on a computer (that's plugged in) something will happen. I quort that if a computer is running a Microsoft operating system, I will have to reboot it sooner rather than later. I quort that Apple products will generally be on the expensive side. I quort that when I drop a bowling ball on my foot, it will hurt, but I do not quort that anything dropped on my foot will hurt. Indeed, I quort that when I drop a pillow on my foot, it will not hurt.

Now, to get personal again. If someone consistently lies to me, I do not quort that they will tell me the truth, and I do quort that what they tell me won't be true. If someone randomly lies to me, I neither quort that they'll tell me the truth or that they'll lie to me. If someone consistently avoids lies, I'd quort that they'll tell me the truth, and I'd quort that they wouldn't lie to me. As such, if I were to say that I quorted someone, it would be wise to ask "how so?", both because you might have thought I said I had courted them, and because you wouldn't know if I quorted that they would remember my birthday or if I quorted that they would steal anything that wasn't bolted down.

Time for a first attempt at a definition.

To quort that X will Y: To believe that one understands X well enough to, with reasonable accuracy, predict that X will do Y.

Or, more generally (and less usefully)

To quort: To believe that one understands some situation enough to predict how it will evolve with reasonable accuracy, with respect to some particular aspect.

Expressing that one quorts, without (contextually or explicitly) specifying the situation and the aspect, isn't very informative. "I don't quort Joe" would, in most cases, be false, because just about everyone does understand other people enough to accurately predict that they'll breathe air, and I think it's safe to say most people believe they have this basic understanding. So, in most cases, "I quort [insert identifier here]" is automatically true: if nothing else, you believe you understand something enough to predict that it can be identified the way you did. A spade, as it were, will tend to be a spade. Beyond that basic level, there's the whole breathing thing: almost everyone quorts almost everyone else, because there's some particular aspect (breathing) which is quite predictable.

To quort a particular aspect of a person's or object's behavior, however, is appropriate to the verb. If someone asks you if you and your significant other want to come over for dinner that night, barring unknown schedule conflicts, chances are good that you quort that your SO would want to (or not want to, as appropriate).

So, as with communication in general, I hope that you now quort that what I'm talking about is the same thing you're thinking of as quort.