Huckabee in tonight’s debate:
They have a saying in the Air Force: If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target. Well, I’m catching the flak, so I must be over the target.
Isn’t there some sort of term for this?
Tag Archives | Lapsus Linguae
Alexandria – Birthplace of the Wheel!
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Just got back from Baltimore: great Molinari Society session, great visit to the National Aquarium, great seafood (don’t worry, not at the Aquarium).
On my return I find in my email inbox an ad for this book on the history of Alexandria.
Now while I haven’t read the book, I confess to being rather put off by the following blurb:
It was here mankind first discovered that the earth was not flat, originated atomic theory, invented geometry, systematized grammar, translated the Old Testament into Greek, built the steam engine, and passed their discoveries on to future generations via the written word.
Say what? Before Alexandria was even founded, Aristotle was teaching a round-earth cosmology, and Leucippus and Democritus were teaching an atomist physics. And Plato’s Academy, with its inscription over the door “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” must have been awfully empty as students and teachers milled about on its front steps, waiting for Alexander of Macedon to be born so he could found Alexandria so there could be a place where somebody could “invent geometry.” (So much for Thales and the Pythagoreans.)
And this is considering only the Greeks. Chinese geometry, Indian atomism, and Indian round-earth cosmology also predate Alexandria – as does Indian “systematized grammar.”
As for the quotation’s final conjunct, I’m not sure whether the author of this blurb literally meant that the Alexandrians were the first to pass any discoveries on to future generations via the written word, or just these particular discoveries, but if it’s the former (which is what the grammar implies), that’s even sillier than the rest of it.
Goblins at the Printing Press
One downside of the lower cost of publishing that computer technology has made possible is the proliferation of sloppy publishing houses. Now don’t get me wrong – the benefits definitely outweigh the costs. But the costs are real, and I’m entitled to gripe about them. Kessinger Reprints comes to mind – their productions range from the good (Isabel Paterson’s Never Ask the End, a perfectly fine facsimile edition) to the bad (Jules Verne’s Children of Captain Grant, filled with scanning errors) to the ugly (Lysander Spooner’s Vices Are Not Crimes, which includes the footnote markers but omits all the actual footnotes, in addition to mangling the subtitle).
But what I’m griping about today is the Quiet Vision Press edition of George MacDonald’s fantasy classic The Princess and the Goblin.
The text itself is pretty much okay – just a few typos (mostly capitalisation and hyphenation errors). But …
First, on the back of the book it says:
The Princess Irene has been kidnapped by Goblins. And it is up to an unlikely hero, Curdie the Miner Boy, to save the day.
Um, no.
It’s admittedly true that throughout the book the reader is continually led to expect that Irene will be kidnapped by the goblins and that Curdie will have to rescue her. But it never happens; MacDonald is too clever a writer to be that predictable. Instead it’s Curdie who gets kidnapped, and it’s Irene who has to rescue him. So, strike one.
Next, the back of the book continues:
An amazing tale from one of the founders of modern fantasy, George MacDonald. Including illustrations from a late 1900th century edition.
Wow, that’s really old. Or else from far in the future – one or the other. Strike two.
Finally, on the first page of the book there’s a place for the owner to write his or her name, and here, in fancy Gothic font, we see printed:
This Books Belongs To ____________________
Strike three!
And then, to add insult to injury (or perhaps injury to insult – or at least threat to incompetence), the copyright page sternly informs us that “No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted,” blah blah blah, “without permission of the publisher.” This in a book where both text and pictures date from the 19th (or 1900th?) century and so are in the public domain! I wonder if there are any legal penalties for claiming copyright protection when you don’t actually have it?
Cleave
“I’m so proud to receive this honour ….”
“I’m so humbled to receive this honour ….”
So when did “proud” and “humbled” start to mean the same thing?
People Who Live in Glass Steakhouses …
At Geno’s Steakhouse in Philadelphia, a sign with a big American eagle says:
This Is AMERICA
Please WHEN ORDERING
“SPEAK ENGLISH”
The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations calls the sign intimidating and discriminatory, and wants to force the owner, Joey Vento, to take it down. Vento’s lawyer says the sign expresses concern for the plight of immigrants and that Vento is trying to help them by encouraging them to learn English.
Okay, two easy questions and one harder one:
1. Is Vento’s sign obnoxious, nationalistic, and bigoted? Yes, of course. (I mean, just look at it. Concern for immigrants, my ass.)
2. Is Vento nevertheless within his rights to post the sign? Yes, of course.
Those were the easy questions. Now the hard one:
3. Why is “SPEAK ENGLISH” in quotation marks?
Perhaps Vento’s grasp of correct English usage isn’t as strong as he supposes – which suggests he may not be ideally positioned to be lecturing others on correct linguistic behaviour.
Stating the Obvious
Guest Blog by Jennifer McKitrick
Watch news, a talk show, or the like, and notice how many times you hear the word “obviously.”
About the flooding in the Northwest the other day:
“Residents are obviously trapped and obviously in need of supplies.”
Umm … what they were showing was houses with water up to the 2nd floor. Maybe they had been evacuated. Maybe someone had just come by and delivered a boat load of supplies. I don’t know. Neither of those things were obvious.
About “baby Grace,” the dead toddler found off the coast of Texas (before she was identified):
“Her family is obviously very worried about her and loves her very much.”
No one knew who her family was, or if indeed they had been the ones that killed her. In fact, her mother and stepfather are now in custody.
I think the use of “obviously” often corresponds closely with what is usually meant by “presumably.”
If you just take “obviously” out of the sentences in which it appears, oddly what is left is something that the speaker is in no position to assert. But somehow “obviously” qualifies what they say, as if they are taking it as obvious. Since the “news” is so often involved with guesswork and presumption nowadays, it’s no wonder that they would often employ words which hedge what they say. What is a wonder is the irony of using “obviously” to characterize something that is not only not obvious, but not even known to be true.
Either that, or it’s just a verbal tick, like “err” and “ummm.”
Jennifer McKitrick is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and Vice-President of the Molinari Institute and Molinari Society.