Category: Language Matters
-
Double Negatives, Intensifiers, and Double Affirmatives
If Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction, then, from a logical point of view, he can get some satisfaction. Logically, a double negative amounts to an affirmative. But we all know what 'can't get no satisfaction' means. It means what 'can't get any satisfaction' means. So what reason do we have to classify the '___can't…
-
‘He’s His Father’s Son’: More on Tautologies That Ain’t
Riding my bike the other afternoon, it occurred to me that 'He's his father's son' is yet another example of a phenomenon I have noted before, namely, a broadly tautological form of words which is standardly employed to express a decidedly nontautological proposition. Taken literally, in accordance with sentence meaning (as opposed to speaker's meaning)…
-
‘Booty’ and ‘Holocaust’ to be Removed from New Edition of Bible
Did they take the word 'ass' out too? Or has that word already been removed? Leave it to a liberal jackass to pander to the dumbest among us. We conservatives need to gird our loins, saddle our asses and and sally forth to smite these change-for-the-sake-of-change jackwagons, planting our boots in their 'booties' as needed. …
-
On Civility and the Recent Civility Initiatives
Civility is a good old conservative virtue and I'm all for it. But like toleration, civility has limits. If you call me a racist because I argue against Obamacare, then not only do I have no reason to be civil in my response to you, I morally ought not be civil to you. For by being…
-
Auto-Antonyms
An auto-antonym is a word that has two meanings, one the opposite of the other. 'Fearful' is an example. According to Michael Gilleland, who inspired this copy-cat post, The Oxford English Dictionary defines fearful as both "causing fear; inspiring terror, reverence, or awe; dreadful, terrible, awful" and "frightened, timorous, timid, apprehensive." There is much more…
-
Pseudo-Oxymorons
Some are puzzled by 'civil war.' How can a war be civil? A drummer of a band I was in stumbled over 'monopoly.' How can many be one? Exercise: find more examples of pseudo-oxymorons, and explain why they only appear to be oxymorons. Don't confuse a pseudo-oxymoron with such attempts at humor as 'postal service'…
-
‘Broken’ and Other Examples of First-Grade English
It is annoying when a senator says that such-and-such is a 'no-no.' Baby talk! Closely related is the phenomenon of what might be called 'first grade English.' George Bush and others have spoken of 'growing the economy.' One grows tomatoes, not economies. But perhaps I am being peevish and pedantic. What about the current overuse of…
-
Aptronym of the Day
According to this morning's Arizona Republic, Rudy Bustamante of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement helped bust a major human-smuggling ring. Nomen est omen.
-
Again on “Muslims Attacked Us on 9/11”
This just over the transom in response to a post from yesterday. Your terminology is technically correct, but what is incorrect with the statement "Muslim extremists attacked us on 911"? One does not have to be ‘politically correct’ to have a desire not to invite misunderstanding of a statement (that it equals: " Muslims-as-a-group attacked…
-
Armor Against Superlatives
Howard Fast, Being Red: A Memoir (Houghton Mifflin, 1990), pp. 98-99: As we circled over Casablanca for landing, I saw below an enormous swimming pool or reservoir. I turned to the man sitting next to me, a grizzled old army colonel, and said to him, "That has to be the biggest swimming pool in the…
-
On ‘Spirituality’
The trendy embrace the term 'spirituality' but shun its close cousin, ‘religion.’ I had a politically correct Jewish professor in my kitchen a while back whose husband had converted from Roman Catholicism to Judaism. I asked her why he had changed his religion. She objected to the term ‘religion,’ explaining that his change was a…
-
Word of the Day: ‘Nychthemeron’
You may have noticed that 'day' is ambiguous: it can refer to a 24 hour period or to the non-nocturnal portion of a 24 hour period. The ambiguity spreads to the Latin injunction, Carpe diem! Does it include Carpe noctem! or exclude it? Or perhaps neither: to seize the day is to make good use…
-
Of ‘Of’
As useful as it is to the poet, the punster, and the demagogue, the ambiguity of ordinary language is intolerable to the philosopher. Disambiguate we must. One type of ambiguity is well illustrated by the Old Testament verse, Timor domini initium sapientiae, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 'Of' functions differently in 'fear…
-
Advise/Advice
I advise you not to confuse 'advise' and 'advice.' The first is a verb, the second a noun. If you take my advice, you will observe this distinction and advise others to do the same.
-
Purveyor/Proprietor
Bill O'Reilly of the Fox News O'Reilly Factor has been introducing Dick Morris as the "purveyor" of dickmorris.com. That should offend your linguistic sensibilities — assuming you have some. The word he wants is 'proprietor.' In plain Anglo-Saxon, a proprietor is an owner. A purveyor is someone who supplies provisions such as food. Suppose you own…