Saturday, June 09, 2007

You've got some Gallicism

Here's a little peek at an exchange (as hosted by the ADS-L) between me and venerated dictionary editor Laurence Urdang. Google his name and take a look at his impressive body of work.

I will present segments of this exchange with nothing other than these introductory remarks and a closing benediction. The eminent lexicographer is not to be dismissed as an ignorant blowhard -- his reasonable and clearly stated claims are evidence enough of his reason. I can only hope that I will publish as successfully as he has. He has both experience and expertise.

After Urdang establishes a complaint against spelling pronunciations and other choices in language use, the noted lexicographer writes the following:

And whence comes homage, a word borrowed and assimilated as HOM-ij or OM-ij, from 12th- or 13th-century French, made to rhyme with fromage? What pretentious crap!

These are all current in the speech of those who otherwise sound like native speakers of American English. Now that we've taught them to read, maybe we can teach them to read a dictionary once in a while so that, as Pick and Pat used to say, they can keep their ruby lips flip-flip-flappin' in the breeze reflecting more or less "standard" (or, at least, high-frequency) usage.


My response
I suppose AmE 'garage' could sound just as pretentious to some. We're surrounded by Gallicisms. Shall we bid them all adi...goodbye?


His response
It might seem unpleasant---even rude---to reject remarks like that of Mr. Covarrubias for asking if we should reject Gallicisms, but I am too old to tolerate silly nonsense. Garage is a borrowing, a loanword from French, and not a "Gallicism." Unlike the British, who, owing to generations of wars, despise the French and warp everything they say if they can (and say GAR-idge just for spite), American speakers harbor no such venom and make an honest, though often unsuccessful effort at simulating the pronunciation of the original.

Covarrubias wishes to regard language clinically, without criticism or comment, accepting what he finds, much as the oncologist never tells you that cancer is "bad," then that is his privilege. I too have a clinical hat, which I don when I need to hark back to my B.S. in English Literature and my Ph.D. in General and Comparative Linguistics (Columbia, 1958) or to my (few) years teaching English and linguistics at New York University, in the 1960s.

But I am also possessed of taste and discernment, and I know good art, especially in language, when I see it or hear it. And mispronunciations, among other errata, are not among the perpetrations I enjoy. Others might delight in them, but I, for example, have not heard any speaker of American English use the word lie correctly in the past few years" it is invariably lay (and I don't mean the past tense, either). Such errors in grammar not only interfere with the communication of ideas but they mark the speaker's education level and his lack of sensitivity to the traditional ways in which English works.

You might well say, "Bugger tradition," in which case you may go on saying, "I ain't got no money" (or whatever you're lacking), and it is unlikely that the language police will incarcerate you for using infer for imply or for rhyming homage with fromage. Also, many of your interlocutors won't even notice the difference between your speech and that of an educated speaker. But I will know and, possibly, so might a handful of others whose opinions are just as unimportant to you.

It all come down to art and to how important that is to you. The use of traditional grammar in language is akin in function to that of the appendix; but, like the appendix, when it endangers infecting the surrounding (t)issues, it must be excised.


My response

Yes I suppose the American venom towards the French...I mean the Freedom People is less vitriolic than the British. Common pronunciations provide some fine evidence: ahnvelope, ahmbiawnce, corsawge, coo-de-grah, ahnclave, homage...some borrowings have retained a semblance of their original sounds. Some had lost an original sound and have now regained it. Some have even changed to sound "more" French in a mistaken attempt to follow what we think are the rules of French pronunciation. I choose not to say much about "pseudo-French" forms because "Gallicism" covers those forms that are *from* French and those that are merely *like* French forms. Borrowed or not.

Yes "homage" is a borrowed word and there are descriptive rules for the assimilation to English pronunciation when a word was borrowed more than 700 years ago. I'm sure that some who insist on reintroducing or just using a Gallicized vowel are trying to use a prestige form. And I'm sure that some who insist on that same pronunciation think it's a recent borrowing, or at least that the pronunciation is standard. I'm not going to call shenanigans on either.

...

If I see a "cancer" threatening to destroy a language too quickly I'll judge it. I'll say it's "bad." But I'm not going to suggest that every freckle be chopped off.


I don't think he and I are in stark disagreement. We probably view a lot of usages with the same judgment regarding style. And when I hear speech that is riddled with affected prestige forms I'm likely to roll my eyes as well. Perhaps where we differ is in our view of what these forms do to the language if they become parallel standards.

I do wish he would have kept tearing into my arguments. I realize of course that my young and clinically sterile perspective is of little interest to him. He has bigger fish to spear.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Swearing like a tailor

On Buffy's current 'must-see' television show, a young dancer responded to hard-to-believe news using the exclamation "shut the front door!" For a split second I thought she was trying to stop an escape. But knowing that I'm old and uncool I've learned to reconsider my first impressions when young cool people speak. I learned this trick years ago when my students kept telling me how fat I was. Learning about the ph- spelling helped me with some deep-seated esteem issues. Those students must have thought I was so cool. I kept overhearing them in the hall saying "go ask the phat bald teacher..."

So shut the front door pretty quickly made sense as a replacement near-expletive phrase. A similar rhythm is important. Some examples:

Shut the Front Door!
Mother Father!
Bullshirt!
Cheese and Rice!
Cheesy Crust!


I'm not sure how I feel about these. Their over-eager use can carry a wink and a nudge that begs for attention. As if the speaker is demanding that's clever eh? Isn't it funny? But they really can work very well to get that release that only the right metrical foot can provide. And they can be hilarious. I remember a high school teacher threatening (teasingly) my friend Tim "I'm going to flunk you!" to which Tim responded without hesitation "Flunk me? Flunk you!" Even the teacher had to laugh.

Flip-flopping on metathesis

The structure of Wikipedia creates an interesting argument. Instead of talking about the mistakes here on this blog should I just correct them over on the Wikipedia page? What if I'm not interested in making Wikipedia more accurate? But obviously I'm interested correcting information that the site puts out there. Why else am I about to correct it here? I'll let the insignificant wrangler address the question if he wishes. Let's get to linguistics.

On the page for metathesis the wikipedants have provided several transcriptions of supposedly metathesized forms. I'll comment on a 6 of the 11.

/ˈkælvəɹi/ for cavalry
This is a fair example of metathesis. It's interesting that the metathesis is not a simple ab>ba but an asymmetrical a-bc>bc-a. This is probably because of contamination by Calvary, the other name for Golgotha (Hill of the Skull).
/ˈkʌmftɚbl̩/ for comfortable
This is another good example. It may involve both metathesis and schwa deletion. Several possible steps in several possible orders would make for decent analyses. It introduces the question of of ɚ vs ɹ̩.
/ˈɪntɚˌdus/ for introduce
I'm not sure I've heard the [-tɚ-] syllable in this word. I'm not a fan of the rhoticized [ɚ] anyway. I prefer the analysis with a syllabic [ɹ̩], but that could still be a rule applied after metathesis has occurred. This would explain the common loss of [t] after a nasal coda of a stressed syllable (as in common pronunciations of 'plenty' 'splinter'...). But the surface representation I hear most often [inʧɹədus] undergoes affrication, not metathesis.
/ˈzɹeɪl/ for Israel
I've never heard this. So I can't comment.
/ˈpɝti/ for pretty
This might be metathesis or it might just be syllabification of the [ɹ̩].
/ˈvɛtʃtɪbl̩/ for vegetable
This is not metathesis. It's not even movement. This looks like metathesis if you overlook an analysis of regressive voice assimilation ʤ>ʧ /__[t] and analyze the [t] before the [ʃ] as metathesis of the ʃt cluster. But let's compare the order of the segments.

ˈv ɛ ʤ t ɪ b l̩ -- standard form
ˈv ɛ ʧ t ɪ b l̩ -- alternate form

Not metathesis.

One more observation (this gets overly pedantic). It's more a matter of convention. The back slashes are usually reserved for phonemic (or underlying) representations (UR). For phonetic (or surface) representations (SR) the symbols would take square brackets. Elsewhere in Wikipedia's tome of information these are called broad (UR) and narrow (SR) transcriptions. I've not seen the broad/narrow terminology before. But I'm just a beginner here.

------------
[Update:

The comment from Buffy highlights a question about the correct spelling of rhoticize. In fact according to the OED the only spelling is rhotacize. This is confusing since the adjective is rhotic and the noun is rhoticity. The present participle listed by the OED is "rhoticizing". I'm not going to turn this into another post. I'm just acknowledging that it's mostly stubbornness that keeps me from changing the spelling I chose. Though the OED's spelling of of the ppl a does give me some support.

I'll not accept blame for the ambiguity with erotic. I think Buffy is just too eager to talk about country matters anyway.
]

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Me Tarzan. You don't understand.

Over on the wall of the Truth Cave I recently etched a link to Geoffrey K. Pullum's Language Log post on apes and language. Pullum's voice is keen as ever and his insights are always worth noting. His post focuses on the silly credulousness in John Berman's piece for ABCNews. Read it. It's an excellent post.

Pullum's point (making it clear that apes can't understand English) is most strikingly made when he parses one researcher's claim: "Qualitatively, there is no difference between Kanzi's language and my language." He writes

Let's look at that first sentence Fields uttered. It has a preposed adverb in adjunct function (qualitatively) at the beginning of an existential clause with a singular postcopular noun phrase with a negative determiner (the determinative no) and a complement preposition phrase headed by between. The preposition between has as its complement a noun-phrase coordination in which the two noun phrases have contrasting genitive noun phrase determiners (Kanzi's and my, respectively). Bill Fields knows how to construct English clauses with typical syntactic sophistication.

Kanzi, on the other hand, sometimes presses the EGG lexigram on hearing a human say "Egg".


Some who would defend Kanzi's ability to understand language would be hard pressed to show that the ape is able to understand how any of those words are functioning. And I'm not talking about analysis. I'm talking about simple competence.

One commenter on the ABCNews site tries hard (with several comment posts) to assure readers that there is good evidence of the ape's English competence. Posting under the name sarunfeldt the commenter says of Kanzi:
He clearly understands spoken English sentences where syntax is critical. ... Apes, and particularly bonobos, are clearly able to communicate symbolically and to use a limited form of ordered syntax.
And in another comment
Kanzi readily distinguishes between the sentences - Kanzi, did you eat the benana?, Kanzi, eat the banana. Kanzi, give me the banana., Kanzi, better not eat that banana. and Kanzi, do you want to eat the banana?
At least sarunfeldt admits that intonation probably has a lot to do with the apes ability to "distinguish between the sentences."

Distinguishing is vastly different from understanding. And it's not a simple "matter of degree." An ape that distinguishes demonstrates little more than that he knows when to choose an appropriate response. Let's look back at the claim that Kanzi shows syntactic competence. The ability to recognize a few (or even many) frozen forms and respond differently to each one does not indicate syntactic competence. One important test is productivity and the ability to understand how a syntactic alternation changes a statement.

Let's look at a very simple example. I noticed this form in a typo that I committed. Imagine your dog is talking with words. Consider two sentences it might say, each missing a word.

1. (*)I have chewed bone.
2. (*)I have chewed bone.

Both sentences look the same. Both are clearly wrong (unless we use "bone" as a mass noun -- that'd be odd) tho the meanings are easy to work out. When assured that they are different and the missing word is the article 'a' the two meanings are then clear to the hearer. Let's assign them correct forms thus

3. I have chewed a bone.
4. I have a chewed bone.

I'll agree that both facts can be "known" or even "understood" by a dog. All it requires is a tiny memory. But could any non-human animal comprehend the critical role of syntax? A simple movement of the article makes the meaning unambiguous by relying on the simple rule that a verb following a determiner must be a participle (a converse of the rule that keeps the participle from preceding the article as adjectives must come after the article). Hence the following obviously contrasted phrases

running the machine
the running machine

lit a match
a lit match

eating the shark
the eating shark

giving the tree
the giving tree


etc

And another simple little difference between sentences 3 and 4 is the verb have. In sentence 3 have is an auxiliary verb which must then take a main verb "chewed" as a complement. And in 4 it's a verb meaning possession and must be, since an article cannot follow an AUX verb. Only a main verb can. In the decontextualized fragment "...have chewed..." the first word is ambiguous: it could be an AUX or main verb, but in "...have a..." it can only be a main verb.

These are rules of English that you understood before reading this elementary analysis. This is what grammatical competence allows you know without ever having heard a sentence.

Let's move beyond the claims that Kanzi shows an ability to distinguish between some simple syntactic alternations. Has Kanzi ever shown the ability to produce any syntactically determined differentiation? And nothing like YOU.BYEBYE or ME.EAT.BANANA (which I doubt he would differentiate from BANANA.EAT.ME).

Let's see Kanzi express the difference between I have related a story and I have a related story using the rules of English he has allegedly acquired.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Remind me not to do yoga with him

I've never been a fan of Jackass or any of those crazy-stunt shows that focus on attention starved boys kicking each other in the groin. I'm not sure what they do or say to each other to convince themselves that their little dares are worth taking. Perry Caravello must have known what he was getting into doing business with Johnny Knoxville. And at some point while putting his genitals a mousetrap he must have thought This might not be entirely pleasant.

Yes. He put his genitals in a mousetrap.

His lawsuit now claims that he was injured. Not a surprise. Wasn't that the whole point? I don't know how much tissue damage is necessary to constitute injury but even if there was no tissue damage I'm willing to go ahead and say that a mousetrap snapping on your slim-jim counts as an injury. So don't do it.

Here's the surprise. The lawsuit makes the following claim.

Plaintiff agreed to do so, and, much to his emotional tranquility and to his physical harm, was severely injured when the trap literally went on his manhood[.]


Is this a legal term? Emotional tranquility? Uhhh...what? Either this is a mistake or Mr Caravello is one hell of a Buddhist.

Or...
The phrase anticipates the phrase "was severely injured" and the sentence is trying to say that his emotional tranquility was severely injured -- he sustained severe injury to his emotional tranquility. But putting it alongside "physical harm" confuses the whole sentence. How can severe injury undo his emotional stability while at the same time furthering his physical harm? But if "and to his physical harm" is a parenthetical that isn't coordinated with "to his emotional tranquility" then we have a reading that makes more sense to me. Let's see if we can rewrite that just a little:

"In regard to his emotional tranquility (and this caused him physical harm) he was severely injured when the trap literally went on his manhood."

Now one last question. Did it hurt as soon as it "went on" his manhood or was it when it "went-off on" his manhood? It doesn't matter. It was a stupid idea from the beginning.

And according to the lawsuit he didn't get paid. Yeah I'm sure that stings.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

The sunn wil comme out...

I always thought Dan Quayle was unfairly ridiculed for his potato moment. First of all how many people have ever misspelled an easy word? Everyone I know. Consider also that the plural of potato does have an 'e' which could lead to some confusion when the poor guy was given a card on which someone else had spelled the singular potatoe.

And so I will downplay the importance of the following picture as well.



First of all Hillary Clinton did not create the banner. Second that's a common misspelling. (It took me a couple passes to understand what the joke was.) Third it's still pretty funny.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Standards of linguistic inquiry

The little red-penned devil won't leave me alone. And sometimes it's worse than the tired and baffling arguments against split infinitives and final prepositions. I'm am learning to leave those behind even as style issues. But I'm ashamed to say that sometimes even phonology trips me up.

In a recent ADS-L message thread a contributor offered examples of what he classified as "an attempt at speech sophistication." He claimed this was what was happening when "the adolescent girl (and occasional guy) characteristically distorts the vowel sounds."

I had no idea what further claim he was going to make so I offered a couple of media examples of vowel backing that might be part of the same "attempt." We were immediately pounced upon by learned linguists who called these characterizations "strange" warned against "psychoanalyzing".

It was a fair assessment considering the large amount of recent and well-known research on some of the vowel alternations mentioned. Just look for Northern Cities Shift and you'll find it.

I stepped down from my claim, did a little searching and found that at least one of the speakers I mentioned was raised in a region that would be expected to show the vowel change. Oops.

Why are claims like "she's trying to sound smart" or "he's trying to sound fancy" so vigilantly shot down? Because linguistics has established a method of conclusions based on measurable and observable data. There is certainly theory involved but that theory addresses the data that has been collected and its relevance. Good theory does not seek to introduce new unobserved data or suggestions of possible factors that could explain the collected facts. Good theory may argue about organization and interpretation, but it doesn't add unaccounted-for variables into an equation.

Consider the following skeleton:

- Some people say [Q].
- Who says [Q]?
- In what phonological environment do some people say [Q]?
- Now we know that [people$] say Q when it falls between [x] and [y].
- The phonology of [people$] has undergone change of a type just as we have found in the phonology of every other group of [people] that has ever been studied.


Now imagine that a dolt like me comes in and makes glib comments like "I think [people$] are just trying to..." without any data; without any theory to support the data-less claim. What happens to the value of a field of inquiry if its practitioners do not hold their claims to a higher standard than an impression? "Because that's what I've always thought" is not reliable data.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

An ask to grind

Although my recent post might have used a needling tone in noting George W Bush's frequent glottal stops I do not intend to make a claim about phonology/phonetics as indicators of intelligence. That's the bailiwick of the language muckrakers. Those people who throw phrases like that's my biggest pet peeve or Oh! I hate it when people say that! into every conversation.

I'll admit it. I was once one of those. I would rail away on the usual subjects. different than, final prepositions, split infinitives, even flapping of intervocalic -t-. And sometimes that little red-penned devil perches on my shoulder and tries to goad me into a rant.

But halfway into the first chapter of any syntax or phonology or historical linguistics textbook and the peeves start dropping like flies. Nothing is so detrimental to the spirit of prescriptivism as learning how arbitrarily the loathed forms are picked for loathing. Not only is almost every word and much of the syntax of PdE the product of changes from former grammatical forms, there is a discrepancy in the attention given to different "mis"pronunciations. Consider some of the familiar foils. (I'll represent the alternations orthographically)

ask/aks
asterisk/asterik(s)
chipotle/chipolte
nuclear/nucular

These are the subject of such lame late night TV type jokes as Of course Bush didn't find any weapons. How could he find any nuclear bombs if he can't even pronounce the word! I'm not quoting anyone with that quip but I can guarantee that some comic hack out there thought it was gold. (If David Letterman ever made the joke I take back the 'hack' accusation. If Jay Leno made it...well...)

I wonder why those words get so much attention while no one finds it necessary to jump and point every time someone says relator for realtor. And almost no one notices when someone says jewlery for jewelry or comfterble for comfortable. And if you are thinking of defending yourself by saying "I hate those too! I notice them every time!" you have missed the point of this post entirely.

Question: does anyone think that Agt Jack Bauer's pronunciation of "nucular" is intended as a comment on the silliness of deriding George Bush's same pronunciation? And didn't Secretary of Defense Heller say it as well?

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

I'm sorry if that made sense.

When Monica Goodling testified before the House Judiciary Committee there were representatives that wanted to help her and others that wanted to trip her up. Representative Dan Lungren (R-California) prefaced his first question with an account of his work as the attorney general (elected) of California.

After describing the judgment he was necessarily allowed in order to deliver on his promises, he asks Ms Goodling

Analogously, doesn't a president have a right when he appoints an attorney general to expect him...to make the decisions in terms of priorities that the president wants? And isn't that an appropriate thing, and is that the kind of thing that you did while you were in the department?


He tees it up for her so all she has to do is swing with a Yes and she's safely on base.

The gentlemanly Virginian Bobby Scott (D-Virginia) isn't so kind.

=================

SCOTT: In your testimony, you indicate that you..."may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions." Do you believe that those political considerations were not just in appropriate but in fact illegal?

GOODLING: That's not a conclusion for me to make. I know I was acting...

SCOTT:...What do you believe? Do you believe that they were illegal?

GOODLING: I don't believe I intended to commit a crime.

SCOTT: Did you break the law?...

GOODLING: The best I can say is that I know I took political considerations into account on some occasions.

SCOTT: Was that legal?

GOODLING: Sir, I'm not able to answer that question. I know I crossed the line.

SCOTT: What line? Legal?

GOODLING: I crossed the line of the civil service rules.

SCOTT: Rules? laws? You crossed the line of civil service laws. Is that right?

GOODLING: I believe I crossed the lines, but I didn't mean to. I mean, I...you know, it wasn't...

=================


Mr Scott is also looking for a simple answer. In this passage he asks two wh- questions, but he follows them with a yes/no question -- trying to keep her from giving an explanatory answer.

"What do you believe? Do you believe that they were illegal?"
"What line? Legal?"

Both Lungren and Scott realize that the right simple answer will give a clear message. Lungren is hoping for a 'Yes! We did what we were legally and ethically expected to do.' Scott is hoping for 'Yes. I believe I broke the law.'

Then comes along Ms Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) with a request that doesn't make a lot of sense. Because time is running short she asks Goodling to make her answers "as cryptic and as brief as possible."

I can understand if Jackson Lee wants Goodling to sacrifice comprehensive answers for the sake of simplicity. That has been the order of the day. I can understand if she wants to assure Goodling that a confusing answer is acceptable. I understand if she wants to assure Goodling that her answers don't have to be complete and unproblematic.

But is she really hoping that Goodling's answers will be as cryptic as possible? I'm going to analyse this as a syntactic compression. She probably meant to ask for Goodlings answer to be as cryptic as necessary and as brief as possible. Otherwise she would have to be very pleased if Goodling responded PHHFFFT

[Update:
I have to wonder if this might just be a misuse of "cryptic." Since the word usually means hidden or secret Jackson Lee might be asking Goodling to leave out as much information as she can. Then "as possible" would have to be followed by the unstated "while still making sense."
]

Read the entire testimony as transcribed by The New York Times

Monday, May 28, 2007

A whole glottal love

I've done a few impressions around the office that have gotten chuckles from my generous colleagues. The impressions are only good enough to be recognized. Not good enough to get any calls for an encore. I only pick the easiest and most obvious. A few people around the department have habits and tics so characteristic that they need only be mentioned and everyone knows the object of emulation. (The "low-voice" is a crowd favorite.)

Years ago when he got famous for doing his George Bush (Daddy) impression Dana Carvey liked to describe the voice as a combination of Mr Rogers and John Wayne. The speech and mannerisms of Bush the younger are also emulated of course and by much better performers. Frank Caliendo does one of the best impersonations out there. He doesn't use the the rubber face masking like Steve Bridges, but his voice is spot on. Bridges has mastered the mannerisms and body language. Just type either name into YouTube and you'll find several clips of their work.

It's quickly apparent from a study of Bush Jr videos that his characteristic facial expression is a squint and his body language often involves stretching his neck, pushing his face forwards towards the audience while either gripping the lectern with both hands, or symmetrically doing a the-fish-was-this-big gesture with both hands, or repeatedly pointing down at the lectern with one.

Let's consider some phonology then. If you choose to watch the following clip listen for the glottal stops.



----------
Glottal stops are a very common in English both phonemically and non-phonemically. They're almost always used as the onset of a sentence that begins with a vowel as in Apples are delicious. If a word begins with a vowel but follows a coda consonant, the consonant will often serve as the onset and a glottal stop is unnecessary. Consider Red apples are delicious. The [d] serves as the onset for apple so no glottal onset is necessary. But Bush uses them in all sorts of odd places where they are commonly not used. He especially favors them for emphasis.

I won't transcribe these passages, but I'll place the symbol for a glottal stop [ʔ] at the head of each syllable that begins with it. Note that many of these syllables follow a coda consonant. There are also glottal stops on some syllable onsets that already have an onset. Typically the glottalized C onset is a soft consonant like [h] or [r] or [N]. It is common when a vowel follows a stylized pause for a glottal stop to be used -- Bush isn't the only one. But note that in several passages he doesn't pause and still uses the stop. I've provided the rough time marker before each passage.

:39 - ʔand the subsequent ʔexplanation of these changes ʔhas been confusing ʔand in some cases incomplete. Neither the attorney general ʔnor I approve...

1:10 - to explain how the decision was made ʔand for what reasons. Second(ʔ) we're giving congress ʔaccess to ʔan ʔunprecedented...

3:00 - We will also release ʔall Whitehouse documents ʔand emails ʔinvolving direct communications with the justice department ʔor ʔany ʔother ʔoutside person ʔincluding members of congress ʔand their staff

3:20 - ʔa ʔreasonable solution to the issue. However ʔwe will not go along with ʔa partisan fishing ʔexpedition ʔaimed ʔat ʔhonorable public servants.

After quite a fluid passage about ("...it'll be a shame") Bush really puts his foot down with four glottal stops, the last three of these are especially odd and clearly employed for emphatic style. 3:45 - ʔit ʔwill be ʔreʔgrettable

Syntax -- Bush like appositives: He likes to reword his claims.

(I've chosen to post a FOX News video because sometimes we forget that this man is the President and FOX News kindly flanks him with flags to remind us. They also like the tasteful alert graphic to remind us to be at a responsible level of awareness. And you have to love the understated "BIG STORY" graphic. Thank you FOX News. Without you I forget to be "an Amerkin")