Speak American!

Joe posted this video over at the Mr. Verb plaza. It's. Amazing.



The English Only movement is fascinating. So often driven at the same time by such pride and such insecurity. Such assuredness and such fear. Combine that confused stance with the dynamics of the current health insurance volley, and you've got a roiling mass of 'We have a right to tell you how to speak.' I have to imagine that the same boos that are elicited by a reasoned dismissal of death panel rumors or the calm denial of nefarious motivation, are also elicited by the sound of a question asked in an unknown language: I.e. They simply boo when you say something they have no way of processing.

Hoekstra is a verb

Hoekstra: v. to complain about your own situation by comparing it to a much much worse situation. To act like a hilariously whiny little bitch.

I wouldn't bet on this one catching on. It's less than a dozen hours old. But I love the story behind it.

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, has a Twitter account. And apparently, when he learned of Twitter's role in the Iranian protests, he felt a certain bond with those who were organizing their stand against the oppressive theft of democracy. He felt a camaraderie with those who were putting their lives at risk for the sake of democracy.

Around noon today, he posted the following in solidarity:



Now that's a tone deaf tweet.

some tweets in reply:

paganmist: @petehoekstra Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like. #GOPfail

netw3rk: @petehoekstra Someone walked in on me while I was in the bathroom. Reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

DeadBattery: @petehoekstra I splashed my face with cold water this morning after shaving – which is similar to having been waterboarded.

And one from a friend:

Marcy's dog, Lincoln, put its wet nose on my foot, now I know how Siegfried and Roy feel.

And now there's a blog.

[Update: Stopped Clock has alerted us to the new URI http://hoekstraisameme.com.
]

Palin and Letterman and cooperation and coordination

A lot of linguistic fodder packed into one segment on Keith Olbermann's little show:

Intentions Inferred through Available Extensions

Sarah and Todd Palin have lashed out at David Letterman for making sexual jokes about their fourteen-year-old daughter. Letterman didn't name a daughter but he claimed the joke was intended as a dig at the older daughter, Bristol. How would we know? Daughter has the intention (think of a dictionary definition) of a 'female offspring.' But when using a term that then has several possible extensions (the actual person or object being referenced) we look for clues as to where the speaker in 'pointing.'

The joke used the phrase 'knocked up.' Bristol was 'knocked up.' She's reasonably likely intention.

But Bristol didn't go to New York with the family, so by their understanding, the only daughter 'available' for the jokes was Bristol's younger sister. It's a fair assumption for them to make if they thought that Letterman knew which kids went on the trip, and they assume that he's referring to the family members on that trip. That's assuming a Common Ground understanding about the trip. And the implications then rely on Grice's maxim of quality: assuming that a statement is truthful.

Letterman then defended himself by offering more facts for the Common Ground: specifically, that he would never make such a joke, so they should trust that his intention was not the younger daughter.

More on Grice's Maxim of Quality in Jokes

There's a fuzzy line where Gricean maxims stop being relevant to humor (we're allowed to make up some facts and say more than we have to etc.) and it starts to flout them deliberately. One of Letterman's jokes on the Top 10 list straddled the line:

2. Bought makeup at Bloomingdale's to update her "slutty flight attendant" look

Among Palin's complaints: she never went to Bloomingdales.

OK. It seems pretty clear to us that she's missing the point of the joke. But let's imagine that the joke was worded differently:

2. Reason she went to Bloomingdale's: to buy makeup to update her "slutty flight attendant" look

Excusing the clunky rhythm, another reason that wording doesn't work as well is the implication that the trip to Bloomingdale's is a premise on which the joke is built, not a factual introduction of the joke itself. As the joke is actually written, her complaint sounds silly. But it does call attention to that fuzzy line where jokes have to be careful about what facts they introduce.

Scope of Adjective

The phrase "slutty flight attendant" gets some attention from Olbermann who wonders if it's fair to use a word like "slutty" to make fun of a public figure. His on-air comrade, Craig Crawford agrees that it's probably too crude. Then Crawford adds

And of course—uh—it's also an insult to flight attendants

That reading is possible. Some would say any comparison to Palin is unfair to respectable women. HEY-OHHHH.

But grammatically this is debatable. If "slutty" is a specifier of "flight attendant" then this isn't really an insult to flight attendants generally. It's a claim that some flight attendants are slutty. And so are some engineers and some librarians and some pilots. So to argue that this is not an insult could offer a structure something like

[[slutty [flight attendant]] look

to be contrasted with

[[prudish [flight attendant]] look

and the joke is then merely saying that Palin is trying to look like the first type of flight attendant.

However, there are also readings available that do conflate "slutty" and all flight attendants. Imagine that both "slutty" and "flight attendant" are specifiers of a type of look, we have a structure something like

[slutty]/[flight attendant] look

where "flight attendant" is almost a restatement of "slutty". The important distinction in coordinations here is that it's not slutty AND flight attendant but slutty IE flight attendant. If it were the first, it could still be contrasted with that "look" that is specified as slutty BUT NOT flight attendant.^† Using them in identical coordination the specifications are conflated and cannot be distinguished.

Which one did Letterman intend? I don't really care.

Watch the video, another post will address the bit that really caught my attention.

---

†Note that a specifying NP, "flight attendant" is awkward or ungrammatical in a predicative role.

I completed my flight attendant training.
*My training was flight attendant.

What goes with the bath water?

This story had been confusing me for a few days. I think I've got a handle on it now.

We all remember FOX's Carl Cameron reported to Shepard Smith that a source inside the McCain campaign accused Sarah Palin of not knowing the continents. Everybody chuckled and realized that it's a non-issue. At least not for another four years.

Then MSNBC came out with a story that Martin Eisenstadt had revealed himself as the source.

Almost immediately Eisenstadt was exposed as a fictional character. A publicity stunt for a movie.

The retractions of the story are where I got confused. There are several claims in any story as it unfolds. Which part is false?

If I tell you that Mrs Royce my homeroom teacher in the 3rd grade told me that four plus three is eight, then another source tells you that it's not true, there are several ways you could understand that. First of all you probably know that the equation is incorrect. So is that all I meant? Did Mrs Royce really tell me anything like that? Did she say five plus three? Four plus four? Eleven minus three? Four times two? And what if you know that Mrs Royce was my 4th grade teacher? Was it in fact Mrs Royce, but not in the 3rd grade? Was it my 3rd grade teacher Mrs Wolford who told me that? Did anybody's teacher say anything like that to me? Ever?

So I blame my confusion about the hoax on stories like the following quick post (by RIGHTISRIGHT over at Drudge.com.

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the leaker of an embarrassing story about Sarah Palin. The story was faked by filmmakers Eitan Gorlin and Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The second sentence can be read two ways:

1. The story that was faked was the identification
   
2. The story that was faked was the embarrassing one about Palin.

Because story in the 2nd sentence can so easily be connect to story in the first, and because they are in such close proximity, this report makes it sound like the hoax was the embarrassing story about Palin. But it could go either way. So it should probably be rewritten.

This wasn't the first report I read about the hoax but whichever one I read or heard left me with the same question. Exactly what was being retracted?

Friday morning during my daily NPR fix the story came up on the Diane Rehm show when Sheryl Gay Stolberg responded to an email by a listener, Theresa:

Rehm (reading): Regarding Governor Palin: The recent lies being spread about her are deplorable. I think that that says much about her image: that people and news organizations could believe she did not know that Africa is a continent. These kinds of lies would never be entertained if they were with regard to any other candidate on the national stage.

Stolberg: You know, I think the caller does tap into something. First of all…uh…it…it was a hoax…um…eh…somebody…uh…posing as a McCain advisor…uh…trying to promote a movie I think…uh…fancied himself a…a spokesman, created a YouTube video and…uh…got…got picked up on TV that this so-called McCain advisor was saying Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent. it abs—

Rehm: And thus NBC then had to correct itself—

Stolberg: —picked it up. That's right had to correct itself. So absolutely wasn't true. I guess unfortunately for Sarah Palin she became during the course of the campaign the kind of candidate that…about which those kinds of things could be believed. … It's sad to say but uh the news media was taken in but she herself made some statements that made that kind of hoax believable.

Before I listening to this show I had been thinking that the hoax was only about the identity of the McCain source, not the story about Palin. Here Stolberg states clearly that the whole thing was a hoax: that no source from the McCain campaign ever made such a claim. Of course she also said early in the show that Joe Biden had called Dick Cheney the most dangerous man in America. A listener corrected her and she graciously accepted the responsible correction. So she's not an airtight source.

What is? It might surprise you.

A FOX News story addresses this confusion clearly.

The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin -- not the FOX News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony.

Before we heap praise on FOX for simply being a more responsible and precise news source we should note that they have an obvious interest in preserving the dignity of the original story which they reported. Naturally when they correct the later development contributed by MSNBC they're going to be vigilant in letting the reader know that the story as first reported by FOX is still legitimate.

I could care less about McCain agreeing more...I mean less

These pundits need to learn when to simply say Ehhh. It happens. (You only need to watch if you haven't yet seen or heard McCain's "I couldn't agree with them more" flub. The relevant part starts around 3:20.)



So now we've all seen the video of John McCain's stumble. Memorize it. Practice it. Impress your friends with your inability to move forward from old news stories.

I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more. I couldn't disagree with you. I couldn't agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most [eh] G-d loving most…most patriotic part of America... this is a great part of the country. My friends: I could not ag— I could not disagree with those critics more.

Keith Olbermann wonders if it's fatigue, panic or a Freudian slip, and Chris Cillizza prudently suggests it's just fatigue. While fatigue is just the type of factor that makes these mistakes more likely, it's an unnecessary analysis. The phrase gets tripped up more by negation than anything else. Cillizza adds that he tries not to ridicule in such cases because he's probably going to make just such a mistake someday. Bravo Chris. Leave the carping to us silly bloggers.

What was McCain trying to say? Probably I couldn't disagree more. But that simple 4 word phrase is very easy to mis-negate (We'll use that word for any overnegation or undernegation that results in an incorrect negation.)

correct negations

I disagree

I couldn't/can't agree

I couldn't/can't disagree more

incorrect negations

I agree

I couldn't/can't disagree

I couldn't/can't agree more

While we tend to process language word by word when we hear it (input)—that's what makes some garden-path sentences so difficult—when we produce language (output) we tend to plan ahead. And even tho we have a sense of where we're going we sometimes forget where we've been.^†

So let's track McCain as his plans of saying I couldn't disagree more gang a-gley

[They're] saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, —_{Say it's wrong John they're wrong which means I don't agree with them}— I couldn't agree with them —_{that's right. I couldn't. No. Wait. Can't. No it's cool. The line starts with couldn't. Now how does it end?}—more. —_{CRAP! Change it quick!}—I couldn't disagree with you…—_{Stop! Don't say 'more.' So it's still OK, right?}— I couldn't agree with you more —_{What? They didn't say anything. Ah hell just finish it somehow. What comes after 'more'? ... 'more than' OK.}— than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most [eh]&mdash_{What did they tell me about these 'most' lines?}— G-d loving, most—_{Wait, that's the line that's been getting us in trouble. Don't say it!}—most patriotic part of America...—_SHIT!— this is a great part of the country. —_{That's fine. Let's wrap this up.}—My friends: I could not ag—_{MOTHERFUCKER!!}— I could not disagree with those critics more. —_sweeeeet—

We've all done something like this. Obama's done this. Olbermann's done this. Such mangled utterances are too common to be very telling. But they're certainly inopportune.

---

† I'm convinced this is what accounts for some double-prepositional construction such as for whom are you waiting for? or with whom are you speaking with?

Is it because you're stupid or because you're ignorant?

(audio only)

(h/t to casey)

Howard Stern sent Sal to do a man-on-the-street bit. It's pretty funny. But it doesn't say as much about the voters or their ignorance of policies as it does about the power of a question to trigger a presupposition.

An important point: It's unfair to point this accusation only at black voters. Ask voters of all races supporting either candidate questions like this and you'll get similar results.

When I heard the first question I didn't catch on immediately to what happened. And believe it or not I'm a reasonably smart fellow. I know the difference between pro-life and pro-choice but when someone asks if I support Obama "because he's pro-life" I might very likely hear it as pro-choice. Remember the old gag that asks Where do you bury the survivors? It doesn't work because of ignorance. It works because of cooperative principles.

In the next interview it doesn't sound to me like the person answering the question is taking a stance on stem-cell research. It sounds more like he's taking a stance alongside Obama on a phrase that he doesn't quite understand

Q: Are you for Obama or McCain?
A: Obama.
Q: OK. And why not McCain?
A: Well I just don't agree with some of his…you know…policies. No.
Q: Now Obama says that he's anti stem-cell research. How do you feel about that?
A: I…I believe that's…I wouldn't do that either. An—…I'm anti stem-cell…yeah

He's obviously not anti stem-cell. We kinda need those to become...well, everything. But it sounds like an issue that he doesn't quite get.

I'm not just trying to defend these interviewees. These are embarrassing exchanges. And it sounds like their grasp of the issues is a bit light. But I suggest that their willingness to agree to some of the statements is largely due to the pragmatic conventions in discourse. Questions that begin "is it because X" presuppose that X is true. The same way that a yes/no question can easily trap you into answering in a way that accepts an unfair presupposition. One old standard example is did you stop beating your wife? If I answer either yes or no I've simply affirmed the unstated condition: that at some point I did beat my wife.

The episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Coast to Coast Big Mouth shows Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) getting caught by just such a question. I have to go by memory here: talk-show host, Johnny Patrick asks Laura if Alan Brady (Carl Reiner) ever takes off his toupee. I can't remember if she answers yes or no, but it doesn't matter. [Update: Elizabeth's comment sounds about right. 'Oh no, he wears it all the time' sounds just like Laura Petrie.] The form of the question presupposes that Brady wears a toupee. Laura then takes this to mean that Patrick knows about Brady being bald. And she answers accordingly.

There's always the option of responding without agreeing to the premise of the question: 'neither' or 'I've never beat my wife' or 'he doesn't wear a toupee' or 'Obama isn't pro-life' are fair responses. It's just not clear that you'll need to resort to this when you're being interviewed by someone that you assume is asking a felicitous question.

Stumped speech

I don't know why people think Palin is dodging questions. Let's look at the video and transcript.

Couric: You've said, quote: "John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business." Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago can you give us any more examples of his leading the charge for more oversight?

Palin: I think that the example that you just cited with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie -- that … that's paramount. That's more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

Translation:
Q: What else has he done?
A: He's done enough.

That's a fair response. Not a comforting one. But a fair one.

The CBS page provides this important exchange that didn't make it onto the video.

Couric: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you've said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?

Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.

I went to college with a kid who made a habit of treating the homeless with disrespect. When a homeless person would ask 'Do you have any spare change you could give me?' and my friend would say 'I've got plenty of spare change' and he'd keep walking. We called him an ass.

The difference here is that if the homeless person had demanded to see the change, my friend could have produced it. When Couric demands more evidence of McCain having supported more regulation:

Couric: I'm just going to ask you one more time -- not to belabor the point: Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

Palin: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring 'em to ya.

Is this unfair to Palin?

In Grand Rapids Michigan (17 Sept 2008) a member of the town-hall gathering gave her a big ol' opening. No major parameters. No trick question. Nothing specific. On the issue of Palin's limited foreign policy experience the questioner handed her the baton:

Audience member:I want to give you your chance. If you could, please respond to that criticism and give us specific skills that you think you have, to bring to the White House to rebut that or mitigate that concern.

Palin responds to the criticism first by explaining why some people have focused on the issue. And as for the specifics:

Palin: But as for foreign policy: you know I think that I am prepared and I know that on January twentieth if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president certainly we'll be ready. I'll be ready. I have that confidence. I have that readiness. And if you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead and … and you can ask me. You can even play stump the candidate if you want to. But we are ready to serve.

What? She answered. She gave us the specific skills. She is prepared and ready. She has confidence which isn't a skill but it's important. She also has readiness. She needs that specifically doesn't she? She can even answer questions about specific policy or countries. We can even ask her.

Lay off, people.

A political Hail Mary

Linguistics isn't political. So I'm about to look at language in order to defend Sarah Palin against some recent and common attacks. It's a risk†. Believe me -- I have no political interest in defending her. I disagree with just about every single policy position that she has endorsed. Not that my view matters.

I haven't worked too hard to conceal my political opinions lately. Certainly many readers have no interest in my political leanings and would rather not have to stop in only to find my judgmental polemics. Most readers so far only trust me on matters of language (if that). Anything else and my opinion isn't worth the paper it's not written on. Is it ever?

So here's the quote being used against Palin.

Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from G-d. (AP article*)

The headline of the article: Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from G-d'

Watch this video and notice the pullquote that floats down the screen.



These citations claim that Palin uttered a phrase of her belief regarding the nature of the war. But it's a misleading quote. Even tho she uttered the words our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from G-d it's not fair to say that she called the war a task from G-d.

Our is not the first word of the phrase. The first word of the phrase is that. It's a complementiser introducing a complement clause. So we look at the full quote to answer an important question: of what word is the phrase a complement? Here's the full quote as I transcribe it from a full video of her talk.

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also for this country: that our leaders -- our national leaders -- are sending them out on a task that is from G-d. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for: that there is a plan and that plan is is G-d's plan. So uh bless them with your prayers: your pr- prayers of protection over our soldiers.

So it's a complement of pray. There's a verb phrase ellipsis in the second sentence: a fragment. Let me set this out visually from the quote.

Pray:
____ for our military men and women
(also) ____ for this country
____ that our leaders are sending them out on a task that is from G-d.

Then she adds that "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for"

This isn't an opposed difference in the semantics. It's not as radical a misquote as if she had said I don't believe that our leaders are sending them out on a task that is from G-d, but it is an important difference. It's closer to the difference between I know that I love you and I hope that I love you. And hoping that a war is such a task can be interpreted various ways.

If I want to be charitable I'll say that she's praying that this war be directed by a desire to do good and to spread peace and to liberate a country. I'll add that she obviously has faith in war to do that. And so she hopes that all decisions by the war pigs will further those tasks of good service. That's as charitable as I can be.

If I want to less charitable I'll say that she's hoping her G-d agrees that this is the best way to rid the world of evil non-Christians.

Just a little more. She says Pray … that our leaders … are sending them out on a task that is from G-d.

It's a football that's already in the air. So let's all just cross our fingers and hope that the job being given to the military is already a righteous one.

I will only defend Palin's statement against the misrepresentations by incomplete quotes. I used it against her in conversations with Buffy and some office mates. When I saw the full quote I realized that I was claiming she had said something that in fact she hadn't.

I still disagree with her belief that war can be a task from G-d. And I disagree with her view that prayer could even accomplish that. And that's based on what she really said.

Here's a fuller version of these and other statements she made at her church in Wasilla. The passage in question begins around 3:39.

---

† The only real risks of course are 1) that you'll think I'm a supporter of Palin 2) that you'll get upset with me for defending her at all for any reason 3) that you'll get sick of hearing me talk about politics. The first isn't likely. The second is fine with me. On the third I ask for your indulgence.

*In several places I have taken the liberty of using an orthographical representation that is different from the original source. This is out of respect to varying sensibilities of readers. In a quotation this is sort of like choosing well-formedness over faithfulness. Ironic.

Political etymology

From John McCain's interview with Bob Shieffer on Face the Nation.



About 75 seconds in McCain says with some emphasis

But we need to prove to Americans that this is the party of Abraham Lincoln, [pause] Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. We're the party of Abraham Lincoln.

Notice the stress he puts on Lincoln's name. That's where the primary stress would normally go but he definitely increases the emphasis. Notice also the stress on we're in the next sentence. That one is typical of contrastive stress. It's the type of stress that you put on a word only when you're trying to emphasize that another word is not the right one. He uses a contraction but he's certainly stressing we instead of are. If he was stressing are he wouldn't contract it. What's the word he's trying to negate? Well they of course. And who are they? I doubt he's thinking of the Green or Libertarian parties.

So he gives Lincoln a stress to indicated a semantic loading. Like the stress you give when someone asks 'Is she smart?' and you say 'She went to college' as if only one conclusion can follow. Not the stress that leaves the issue open 'Well she went to college, so...' But the stress that says 'Of course! You know what college means!' Note that the same word is stressed in both phrases. But in the emphatic stress the pitch starts higher and falls more clearly.

And he gives we're stress to indicate contrast. As if he's trying to reclaim an identity that has been denied his party. Trying to wrest it from the party that has taken it from him.

This argument is familiar. It's a lot like those arguments that use an etymology to argue the true meaning of a word. Even when all current evidence is contrary to that history. You can argue for instance that girl originally meant any child, male or female. But that history doesn't say anything meaningful about the way the word is used now.

McCain is too tense

John McCain has used some shameless sleight of word to get his claims past the lie detector. But a May 28 statement didn't get past Steven Pinker who passed it on to Geoff Pullum who then quotes foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann's promise: If you're going to start fact-checking verb tenses, we're going to make sure we start monitoring verb tenses a lot more closely than we have in this campaign.

Less than two months later and it's like McCain is playing with a new toy: verb tenses. He's just throwing them around as if trying to cover every possible span of time.

Of course Jon Stewart has to get in a jab.

Stewart: Ultimately through his frustration McCain insisted that he had the correct Iraq policies no matter which verb tense you use.

McCain (on video): We will succeed. We have succeeded and we will win the war in Iraq.

And we are winning!

Stewart: And then we will have won! Having been winning we will have had to win! My friends we will would have.

Watch the full episode here.

Q: Do you know? A: I don't know.

I might have some advice for John Yoo. One exchange between Rep. Jerrold Nadler (Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties) and Yoo (Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General) from yesterday's hearing on detainee interrogation:

Nadler: The question is not "would an American president order such terrible things" but "could he legally do so?"

Yoo: Let me -- sir it's -- I think it's an -- it's not fair to ask that question without any kind of facts -- any kind of --. I mean you're asking me to state some kind of broad

Nadler: So in other words-- so in other words -- so in other words there is nothing conceivable..

Yoo: No sir I'm not saying...

Nadler: No no let me finish the question because you don't know what I'm going to ask. There is nothing conceiveable that -- to which you could answer 'No, an American president could not order that' without knowing facts and context?

Yoo: Sir I told you I don't agree to that because you are trying to put words in my mouth about --tr-- attempting to get me to answer some broad question covering all circumstances. And I can't do that. I don't like the way you're characterizing my answer.

Nadler's question has so many semantically additive negations that it is difficult to understand exactly what he's asking. It's possible to figure it out but those negatives keep switching directions (yet another argument in favor of negative concord).

Yoo could easily and convincingly say that he doesn't even understand what he would be saying with either a 'yes' or 'no' answer. And Mr Nadler has shown that he's either unable or unwilling to simplify the question or shorten that stack of negatives.

But Mr Yoo rejects the question by saying that it is there are too many variables that he cannot anticipate that might or might not limit the President's options. And since he doesn't know which way these undefined facts would go he's unwilling to say that the facts might go in either direction. So there's our answer.

Hypothetical Questioner and Responder:

Q: Do you know if there are doodads in that box?
R: I don't know what doodads are.
Q: So you're not willing to deny that there is no vacancy of doodads in that box?
R: What?
Q: Can you imagine that if you found out what a doodad is that you might know if there are any in that box?
R: I can't tell you that because I don't know what a doodad might be.
Q: Is there any possibility that a doodad might be the type of thing that fits in that box?
R: I can't tell you that because I don't know what doodads are.

Within the refusal to say that a doodad could not be any one thing the Responder is insisting that a doodad could be anything.

So Yoo's refusal to comment is a refusal to rule out even a hypothetical horrendous interrogation technique.

Mr Nadler could have avoided so many variables in his question. Each of the following could lead to a simple follow-up.

• Do you know of any interrogation technique short of murder that can always be ruled out?
  
• Is it true that given the right facts the President has unlimited freedom to order any form of torture?

But we all know how easy it is to simply avoid a yes or no answer. How many times did Tim Russert ask Will you rule out the possibility of running for president? only to be told I'm happy where I am. No matter how many times he pushed them saying that's not what I asked the eely politicians played dumb. They're geniuses at that.

Step away from the words

Several months ago I was in heavy traffic when my brakes snapped. Rust had done its damage and when I pressed on the pedal for a not-so-hard brake I heard a snap and the car lurched forward freed of my rein. I smacked into the car in front of me. We both pulled over. The kids in the other car stepped out looking a bit dazed. I stepped out and asked if everyone in the car was OK. We walked to the bumper and saw that no damage was done. We weren't going that fast. I was still in a bit of shock and I looked up at the two kids standing there. The fact that I didn't know which of them was the driver or owner kept me silent for just long enough for them to shrug and say "Oh well." I too shrugged and got back into my car.

It was about a mile home. When I stepped into the living room I realized that I had never apologized. I felt like a cad. A jerk. A fool. An ass. I felt like flipping myself off. I still felt bad about it the next day (still do) so I told the story to everyone in the office and all my classes and I assured them that I knew I had been an idiot.

That was important: that I judge myself for the lapse -- accuse myself of behaviour that I do not approve of. I lost control of a vehicle and I had agreed to manage safely. I had then failed to apologize to a car full of people that I will probably never see again (they got on the highway and left town) so I apologized to another part of my community hoping to assure them that my second oversight was unintentional and uncharacteristic. And by assuring them that it was uncharacteristic I was promising to be more careful in the future.

My take on Hillary Clinton's statement of regret really doesn't add anything new or exciting to the analysis of public non-apologies.† As The Ridger says in her comment -- Clinton's is pretty standard.

In that post I asserted something that deserves explanation.

Tho I've given my understanding of her reason for using the example…I agree that an apology was necessary.

Why was it necessary? If you have seen Keith Olbermann's invective you've heard his reasons. I don't agree with all of them. He believes the mere use of the word assassination is unacceptable. He verges on chastising her for the mere reference or even utterance of the word. I don't. Otherwise I'd have to implicate him too.*

I do agree that Clinton doesn't need to have made a purposeful implication in order for an apology to be appropriate. The lines of responsibility in language get fuzzy while in other interactions they are managed with more resolution. If the brakes go out in my car I apologize if I rear-end you. I don't have to accelerate into your car with the intention of causing damage. Not just personal safety, but good manners and social grace keep me aware of the effect my vehicle can have and I accept responsibility for whatever happens even when it's something that I never intended to do. Even if it's something I was trying not to do. Even if I was being reasonably careful. Some situations call for extra care. And even if I'm being careful I might not realize just how much more careful I should be.

It's winter. I'm planning to make a turn. I slow down. I downshift. I brake lightly. I know the road is icy so I start this process early. But the road is more slippery than I thought and I slide through the intersection. I was trying not to do that. But I smash the side of your car. And I apologize because if I could go back I would make different choices. It doesn't matter that I didn't put the ice there. Or that I've never gotten a ticket before. I'm not apologizing for being a bad driver or mounting a malicious attack. I'm apologizing for something I would like to have done differently.

Language makes the line fuzzy partly because getting 'hit' isn't the same as being offended. I can't just realize 'Hey--I've been offended!' It's more like 'Hey--someone said something to which I take offense.' You can't be offended without consenting to it. This view doesn't blame the victim because it doesn't nix the responsibility of the offender. No one need apologize for being offended.

All candidates are in the middle of a volatile campaign. There are all sorts of connotations and landmines out there that people are being careful to avoid. Way back when Joe Biden described Obama as both black and "articulate" he was hammered by people who hate hearing those qualities mentioned together. This was even tho Biden used "articulate" in a non-restrictive clause (tho not everyone agrees he did).

It doesn't matter that articulate is a positive quality and it doesn't even matter that contrary to many opinions it's not a token compliment. People of all ethnicities and all cultures are praised for being articulate. For speaking well. For speaking forcefully and clearly. Why was Biden's comment a problem? Why should he have apologized? Because the public didn't like it. Because the statistics on how the adjective articulate is used are not as loaded as the opinions regarding its use.

Part of an apology is an assurance. And this assurance does well to acknowledge that learning has occurred. This is why I say Clinton's apology was necessary. She has used the timeline reminder before and now she has been told that it's not a pleasant rhetorical device. That's subjective yes. But a politician would do well to say that she cares about the things the voters care about. (Unless there's a principled reason to disagree with the voters. The best politicians know when to do that too.)

What about a reasonable misunderstanding? This goes beyond the scope of any linguistics that I know how to do. There's a miraculous amount of weighing and balancing and negotiating and maneuvering of a complexity that I won't attempt to describe or understand. One one side of the field is a reasonable reaction and on the other is an unreasonable reaction. And the centerline is dotted and moving. It's hard to tell where and if it's been crossed.

How do we guard the edges of our ambiguous language?

If I say 'Get the funk out of here' and you are horrified thinking I said 'Get the fuck out of here' I should probably apologize for using the word that I knew could easily be confused. If I say 'Get the firetruck out of here' and you didn't hear the '-iretr-' I don't need to apologize. I might apologize for not speaking more clearly -- but that'd be charitable of me. If I say 'Hello' and you think I said 'fuck you' then you should probably apologize for such a ridiculous accusation.

Then why am I so sure that Clinton should apologize? How do I know that those who were offended by her comment are being reasonable? I don't. Maybe I don't have to know.

An apology isn't necessary for Clinton to be a good person. For that it's neither necessary nor sufficient. She's a politician and an apology may be necessary for her to seem like a good person. (And no: I don't use seeming to preclude being.) But I have no say over- and little understanding of- the impression politicians make on the public. I'm often baffled by the things that ruin a political career and I'm more often angered by the things that don't.

The truth is that she will help voters to move on whether she apologizes or not because politicians are good at fooling a lot of people. A slick misdirection and some sleight of mouth and it becomes apparent that a hefty mass of the population is stuck in Piaget's sensorimotor stage. A clever politician knows to push aside forgiveness and ask for amnesia instead. Clinton doesn't have to convince her critics that they shouldn't have been offended. She just needs to convince them that they never were.

---

†The blending that leaves Clinton sentence nonstandard gets brief mention in Mark Liberman's post. He sees it as a blend of an I regret that- and an I'm sorry if- sentence. It's true that 'I'm sorry if-' is much more common (and natural to my ear) than 'I regret if-'. So he sees if as a complementizer. Read his post for more discussion and several links to helpful analyses of apologies.


*In his bit Olbermann asks disbelievingly: You actually use the word assassination? Well...no. She didn't. She used the word assassinated. Of course his argument doesn't rely on this distinction.

If Hillary Clinton offended anyone

It's not likely that in her meeting with the Argus-Leader Hillary Clinton was making a statement like anything can happen. That would be sick.

We all remember: Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. She puts stress on June and I take the point to be an entailment: It occurred in June therefore the campaign was still going in June.

Her point is that previous campaigns have gone into June. A horribly chosen juxtaposition of points for evidence. Speaking of juxtaposition...

You should be willing to campaign for every vote. You should be willing to debate anytime anywhere. I think it's an interesting juxtaposition where we find ourselves. And you know, I have been willing to do all of that during the entire process and people have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa.

YouTube provides a few clips of her statement but none that I could find with this passage. View the fuller Yahoo! News video here

Her use of juxtaposition is very close to position. There's a fuzzy line here. A juxtaposition is the relative position of two or more items -- especially in proximity. So an interesting position is almost by definition because of a juxtaposition with something. I say her use is passable. Tho notable.

Back to her unfortunate example. Tho I've given my understanding of her reason for using the example (≅ of course we remember it was in June because something horrible happened) I agree that an apology was necessary. And she almost gave one. But it's the typical hedge.

(I use the slashes as 'uh' pauses)
Clarification isn't always necessary or helpful because it can come across as a defense of the statement. She offers this:

I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination / primary contests that go into June. / That's a historic fact.

That's okay so far. She doesn't excuse the statement.

She gets a little eely right after that statement:

The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last / days because of Senator Kennedy.

This acts partly as an explanation (excuse?) for why she would bring up RFK's assassination. In that role it's weak.

It works better as another part of an apology. The reassurance. Statements of regret will often make clear what is valued and what is respected just as a reminder that no ill intent would be compatible with such a stance. It's the Don't worry. I do love you bit. And there's nothing wrong with it when it's honest. I believe Clinton's statement of respect for the Kennedys is honest.

Then we get to the I'm sorry part. I'd rather see I'm sorry than I regret but the language of apologies in public statements is changing to the latter. I'm not yet convinced that this is a matter of honest language change. I don't believe regret is the same statement of remorse. And it is too often followed by a conditional clause. I've seen Clinton's apology transcribed two ways:

1. I regret that if my referencing...was offensive (here)
2. I regret if my referencing...was offensive (here)

I transcribe it thus:

I, you know, regret that if / my referencing / that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family / was in any way offensive. / I certainly had no / intention of that whatsoever. / My view is that / we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and / give us / a lot to live up to / and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States senate from the state of New York / and have the highest regard / for / the entire Kennedy family.

In text it's difficult to tell if she said that as a demonstrative or a complementizer. In the video it's clearly a complementizer. A demonstrative in 'I regret {that/this/those} if...' would almost certainly be followed by a slight pause and wouldn't be reduced to the weak form of that in 'that if' such as we hear: [ðəɾ.ɪf]. Only the complementizer is pronounced that way. It's not grammatical but it's not rare in speech to have this type of blend.

I regret that my referencing was offensive.
I regret if my referencing was offensive.

(If can also be used as a complementiser in sentences like I doubt if I'll make it but for now I'll forgo any argument for why Clinton's statement isn't such a case.)

But while the grammar isn't disheartening the lack of a true apology is. The first statement regrets the quality of the statement -- necessarily defined by a reaction -- but not the choice to make it. The second statement only regrets conditionally. It's a favourite of public figures. What is most disingenuous is the implication that the statement might not have been offensive. Clinton knows that it offended some. She knows it was offensive. How would the same apology sound for another type of offense.

I'm sorry if I totaled your car.
I'm sorry if I broke your arm.
I'm sorry if I don't know your name.

Once the fact has been established every one of these sounds ridiculous.

Don't blame him for what you're thinking he's obviously doing

Bill Cunningham is "a bit of an historian". He's now on a campaign to continue the traditions of respect for presidential candidates.

"You might recall Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight David Eisenhower and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, William Jefferson Clinton. The man who would be president...normally the middle name is employed in order to give the man more dignity and more respect."

So that's why he insists on using the full name of Barack Hussein Obama.

His goal: "simply to state the fellow's name much like I often say John Sidney McCain the Third."

His intentions are his own to know -- and the rest of us can only make judgments based on his probable rhetorical interests.

(listen to his NPR interview with Robert Siegel)

I might never be able to prove it, but this looks like a relevant twist on the question I posed a while ago about loaded terms. The intention in question: why use language that's both accurate and loaded.

Cunningham claims it's because it's accurate.

I believe it's because it's loaded.

Facetious terms

Later in the interview Siegel asks Cunningham what he thinks of John McCain choice to denounce the use of Obama's full name with divisive intentions.

[~4:50]

Sad -- it is very sad for a gentleman who did not hear what I said -- who has met me several times but has forgotten about it he might have half-heimers -- the guys gettin' a bit old. It is sad when he forgets meeting me and then having not heard me he criticizes words that I didn't say, that he didn't hear, and then throws me under the Straight Talk Express.

It's new play on Alzheimer's. The old joke was the eggcorny joke: 'old-timers'. The joke is now with 'Alz' apparently being analyzed as the 'all' morpheme. So if full dementia is of the All(z)heimer's type, temporary mild or selective memory loss is of the Half-heimers type.

Google™ hits.

"halfheimers"    749
"half heimers"   590
"halfheimer's"   85
"half heimer's"  57

It's the office not the man

As Ms Pelosi ceded the floor to Mr Bush I wondered if there was a little blue devil whispering into her ear daring her to say something other than the usual respectful lines. She spends so much time vilifying him and questioning not just his ability but his integrity and ethics. Then she has to clap and show deference. I wonder if it was difficult.

When the applause in the room died down she delivered her introduction:

"Members of Congress: I have the high privilege and distinct honour of presenting to you the President of the United States."

What was that little devil on her shoulder whispering?

Hey Nancy -- start off by saying 'Don't blame me; I didn't vote for him.'

Or did he suggest nonverbal cues.

Just roll your eyes when you're done!

Did he go to a subtle rewording?

heehee...say 'relative privilege and distinct duty'

But those aren't quite subtle enough. I think the slickest little devil would ignore the contentives and would instead suggest a slight rewrite on a functor.

Psst! Listen carefully: say 'I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you a President of the United States.'

Bozell the clown

Keith Olbermann has named Brent Bozell "Worst Person in the World" several times. And he just might be. He might not be. I haven't seen all the data.

But Bozell didn't help his cause during his recent talk at the National Press Club in Washington DC where he was promoting his book Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, But Conservatives Will (broadcast by C-SPAN2). The corpse of the following topic was introduced by an audience member but Bozell was all too happy to help disinter it for blatantly obvious political interests.

Making me lean towards a vote in favor of the title: his comment regarding Juanita Broaddrick's allegations (made almost a decade ago) against Bill Clinton.

"It went beyond rape. It went to a level of violent rape that is ghastly."

I hope he would revise this if given a chance. As it stands the statement implies that the word rape does not always entail a violent and ghastly crime.

Horrific.

The times they aren't a-changin'

From a story about the recently discovered pyramid in the centre of the Federal District of Mexico.

The Aztecs, a warlike and religious people who built monumental works and are credited with inventing chocolate, ruled an empire stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and encompassing much of modern-day central Mexico.

Warlike and religious? Man that sounds ancient. Thank goodness there aren't any empires like that anymore.

Did you mean to vote for...

One of the nice features of Google™ is the spelling suggestion given when a search term looks like a likely misspelling. Above the search results a helpful line in red letters alerts you to a more common spelling for what your search term appears to be.

Type in 'winndows' and you get Did you mean: windows

Type in 'johnny carsen' and you're asked Did you mean: johnny carson

Type in 'conen o'brian' and you see Did you mean: conan o'brian (tho his last name is spelled O'Brien...and misspelling only his last name doesn't offer the correct spelling.)

Note that the misspelled word gets the italic emphasis. That's nicely intuitive.

You've probably also noticed the Sponsored Links in the peach shaded box above search results when the search terms scream I might spend money! Search for 'books' and Amazon jumps up begging for attention. Type in 'stereos' and Circuit City elbows its way in. But these are sponsored and not necessary suggested by Google™.

I recently did an image search for Christopher Dodd and Google™ saw it fit to make the following suggestion

Also try: john edwards

At first I thought the search engine was just throwing out the names of other candidates -- an equal time thing. So I did image searches for all the candidates I could think of.

barack obama -- no suggestion

john mccain -- no suggestion

hillary clinton -- no suggestion

mitt romney -- no suggestion

rudy giuliani -- no suggestion

fred thompson -- no suggestion

bill richardson -- no suggestion

john edwards -- no suggestion

tom tancredo -- no suggestion

ron paul -- no suggestion

sam brownback -- no suggestion

dennis kucinich -- Also try: dennis kucinich wife elizabeth kucinich

Much as the spelling suggestion italicizes the respelled word, the additional or changed term gets bolded in these suggestions.

These "Also try" offerings only work in the image search. I can imagine that most searchers would appreciate images of Elizabeth Kucinich more than images of her husband Dennis. And I can imagine that searches for images of Elizabeth are more common than searches for images of Dennis. But what's going on with Dodd→Edwards?

Is politics really all about the hair?

Hope hopes

Mark Liberman at Language Log recently posted some thoughts about minimalist political slogans. Considering some slogans from both British and the American campaigns he notes that they conspicuously sparse and occasionally unintelligible.

He gathers all the slogans he can find for the Republican and Democratic candidates and concludes that "Among the 9 slogans in both parties, there is not a single verb (leaving out the quasi-adjectival participle forms proven and experienced)." But this conclusion overlooks one unlikely play on words and another that's more likely to be intended--tho I wouldn't argue the point beyond the felicitous possibility.

John McCain's campaign slogan:

• "Courageous Service Experienced Leadership Bold Solutions"

The only likely reading is of three claims: 1. his service is characterized by courage 2. he has experience with leadership 3. his solutions are bold. But an unlikely reading could be paraphrased as "(the) courageous service did experience leadership (and) bold solutions". It doesn't make enough sense to get past a possible but unlikely reading.

Ron Paul's campaign slogan:

• "Hope for America"

The primary reading of this one is as a claim that Paul offers hope: hope exists for American because of Ron Paul. But of course hope might be a verb. And the slogan could easily be a command. Consider it Paul's response to various questions/prompts: Who's going to benefit from the election? Will this country be like the America of old or some nefarious foreign regime? What will be the strongest world power in the future?

...(perhaps) Let's hope it's America

It would recall John Kerry's slogan "Let America be America Again". Maybe that's a better argument against this as an intentional turn.

How likely is it that a slogan chooses such an ambiguity. Unless both meanings are equally powerful and equally positive, ambiguity can be a dangerous thing. Take for instance the Walgreens slogan that claims the store chain exists because life isn't perfect. Is that really what you want us to think? that in a perfect world you wouldn't exist? How about telling us that life is far from perfect but Walgreens gets us a little closer...or we're nowhere near perfect but Walgreens is working on it...or something that doesn't sound like we're the product of human fallibility!...right?

Buffy's telling me to sit down and relax...so...

I really like the ambiguity in Jimmy Carter's slogan "A Leader, For a Change". Both readings make a nice point. "For a Change" is a nice way of both offering a new horizon (there will be change with the next leader) and judging the past administration (having a leader will be a welcome change). It's a nice play on words. So nice that I'm quite sure it was intentional.

And of course political slogans like to float around sans verbs. A list of 45 slogans (here) offers 21 with clear verbs and one (Harding's "Return to normalcy") that could be a verb or a noun. Just like Paul's slogan it's either a promise or a command. You there! Return to normalcy this minute!

The second possible meaning of Paul's slogan is unlikely because it sounds too meek--even pessimistic. Don't accomplish anything anything--don't fight for anything--just sit there and hope. But then neither reading smacks of the cock-sure strut that we heard in such slogans as "All the way with LBJ" "Pour it on 'em, Harry!" or "Vote Yourself a Farm".

Suffer the children

Jon Stewart is very funny and very intelligent. I'm really just guessing about the "intelligent" part because I'm not that sure what intelligent means. But I'm pretty sure that he is very capable of considering data, identifying patterns and understanding logic to knowingly hold opinions and arguments to a high standard before he agrees with them.

And he's quite good with words. He shapes his jokes well and if I'm to believe Will Shortz he's quite good with the crosswords.

But he's made a few missssteps when he chooses to talk about grammar. A few years ago he gave a commencement address at his alma mater William and Mary where he said "We declared war on terror -- it's not even a noun, so, good luck." Geoffrey Pullum at Language Log called him on it back then. So here I can simply say that terror is definitely a noun.

Just last Thursday (4 October 2007) Stewart ridiculed George Bush for uttering the following lines:

"I wanted to share with you why I vetoed the bill this morning. Poor kids first. Secondly..."

(It all starts about 4 minutes into the clip.)

Jon rightly screeches to a halt on this one. "Wait a minute!" he demands "That's your whole first point? Poor kids? 'Here's why I vetoed the bill: poor kids first. Secondly...' No!"

I'm with him on this. I'm not sure what Bush even means with this line. Does he mean "first" as in his first reason is poor kids? Is he going to talk about poor kids first? Is he saying he's going to talk to poor kids first? Is he implying that he vetoed it because he's putting poor kids first? Is he just bumbling through a speech like we all do at times and does he over-apply his use of 'first' as we might all do with words at times? Probably. Would Bush's strategy and logic make sense even if his speeches were pristine? Not to me.

So Then Stewart adds the following request: "Throw me a verb! Give me a modifier! 'First: Ah those [bleep] poor kids'--something! Give me something!"

I'm guessing they bleeped over fucking as the modifier that Stewart thinks would make it a better argument. And of course the joke is that the argument wouldn't really be any better but at least it would be a fuller sentence. But a "modifier" (and by that I assume Stewart means an adjective since there's no verb to take a modifying adverb) isn't enough to make this a complete sentence.

And besides...wait -- poor is a modifier. Why does Stewart need a modifier if he has one already?

...probably because he wants to make the point that Bush's argument needs to go somewhere--anywhere. Well if Bush were to say 'Ah those f---ing poor kids' at least it'd be a forthright admission that he's willing to compromise the well-being of his fellow citizens by taking away more than just their civil rights.