Several people have emailed to ask if I’m going to comment on the first of what will doubtless be a string of risible attacks on new Press Secretary Tony Snow, namely, this piece of nonsense from Think Progress:
Date: May 16, 2006
To: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow
From: ThinkProgress.orgRe: The use of the term “tar baby
Today in your first press briefing you referred to the term “tar baby” on two occasions:
SNOW: Having said that, I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program, the alleged program, the existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny.
QUESTION: What are your personal goals? What do you hope to achieve here? Will you continue to televise these briefings? And would you put into English the phrase (OFF-MIKE) the tarbaby?
SNOW: Well, I believe hug the tarbaby, we could trace that back to American lore.
Based on the context of the term, we believe you meant tar baby to mean: “a situation almost impossible to get out of; a problem virtually unsolvable”
But in “American lore,” the expression tar baby is also a racial slur “used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people. Use of the term has resulted in people being fired.
As Random House notes, “some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context. Now that you are no longer at Fox News, you may want to take them up on their advice.
[My emphasis]
Virtually everything you need to know about why I believe intentionalism is the only coherent interpretive paradigm is contained within the brief bit I’ve bolded for your, er, delectation.;
To wit: If you notice, Think Progress is admitting that they believe Snow’s use of tar baby — how he intended to use the term — was in keeping with its well-known conventional history. Specifically, he was using the term to mean something along the lines of “a situation almost impossible to get out of; a problem virtually unsolvable.”
But having admitted that, TP then goes on to suggest that, though Snow meant one thing, his words nevertheless could, were one inclined to do so, be taken as a racial slur — though to perform such a reading, the interpreter would have to dismiss what TP has already conceded was Snow’s meaning.
And such is the nature of signification, and the importance of intent in governing it: TP’s argument seems to be that it doesn’t much matter what Snow meant by the term (given the context, it is just as appropriate to conclude Snow was alluding to Robert Anton Wilson’s “Tar- Baby Principle”– which posits that one is attached to what one attacks — as it is to assume he was alluding to Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” tales, though it doesn’t much matter which you choose). Instead, because the term “tar-baby” has been used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people — and because some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context (presumably, the same kind of people who are affecting outrage here)1 TP is arguing that the expression should be off-limits to people like Snow, using as a justification for this (incoherent) linguistic argument the possibility that someone somewhere (and it bears noting, this hypothetical “someone” is necessarily being posited as one who is less astute then the good folks at Think Progress, who had no problem whatsoever understanding Snow’s intent) might misinterpret Snow’s remarks. In short, they are using as a justification for demonizing his speech the possibility that someone, somewhere, might either 1) misinterpret Snow’s meaning, believing him to have intended to use the phrase as a racial slur; or 2) misinterpret Snow’s meaning, because they believe that, regardless of what he may or may not have intended, the words themselves carry with them the necessary social taint of racism.
In the first case, the hypothetical (and not quite sufficiently erudite) interpreter TP invents is engaging in an intentionalist reading of Snow’s comment, albeit one that contextual and conventional clues would argue is an incorrect one. In the second case—which is the far more problematic (and dangerous) of the two—the interpreter is engaging in a formalist reading, one in which the signifiers (to borrow from Derrida) are haunted by the ghosts of all their previous signifieds.
In other words, once a signifier (“tar-baby”) has been used to index a particular referent (“black people,” used derogatively), it will always carry with it, inherent to the signifier itself, that referent as one of its potential signifieds (what the utterer attaches to the signifier to provide it with meaning).
Under this description, the utterer (Snow) is responsible for the entire history of the signifier’s usage. Which, followed to it’s logical extreme suggests that it is language that controls the utterer, and not the other way around.
What makes such a suggestion dangerous is that, once we concede this (erroneous) semiotic point, we have surrendered our right to mean what we mean to the whims of a particular interpretative community—who, as is the case with TP and their ilk, may be so disposed to suggest (either cynically or because of some fundamental misunderstanding of how interpretation works) that our meaning, created at the moment we add our signified(s) to the signifier, is secondary to the “meaning” others can make out of our utterances.
Or, to put it in simpler terms, once our meaning is successfully marginalized, the intentions of the interpreter to make our utterances “mean” what he or she says it means (through force of will, and using as a justification the fact that the sounds like those we have uttered have been used in the past to mean something other than what we meant when we uttered them) creates the conditions for relativism that are at the heart of any interpretive paradigm refusing to honor original intent.
Worse, such an incoherent linguistic maneuver allows interpreters to pick and choose how to frame the meaning of the utterer (be the utterer Tony Snow or Bill Bennett or Captain Ed), and it is not difficult to see how very convenient such a procedure is for those willing to put it to strong ideological use.
The post by Think Progress being a case in point.
Next up: Think Progress writes Laura Bush to let her know that her use of a garden “spade” could be considered insensitive. And that “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” should never again be so much as whistled by little children, lest they find themselves unwitting racists.
****
1 As was the case with both Bill Kristol and the White House response to Bennett’s remarks, there is tendency on the part of pragmatists to inadvertantly reinforce this dangerous idea of interpretation. Snow (or Bennett, or Morrissey), the argument goes, should have known that some people were likely to misinterpret their remarks, and so each gentleman should have chosen his words more carefully. Which, while that is nearly always good advice on the political / PR level, is, on the linguistic level, precisely the wrong way to allow “interpretation” to proceed. Because what such a pragmatic argument does, essentially, is argue implicitly for the position that any interpretation that can be made—or, if you prefer, any perception one has of a given utterance—cannot in any important sense be called “wrong.” Perception is reality, and, because correcting incorrect interpretations require a concerted effort, the quick fix is to try to avoid incorrect interpretation in the first place. But of course, this just means that the utterer should take care to provide ample signals for his intent. And Snow did precisely that, as is evidenced by Think Progress’ ability to understand him in context. What it does not mean is that Snow should be held responsible because symbolic communication always carries with it the potential risk of being misunderstood. What we should be doing is insisting that people learn how better to interpret—not that every interpretation is somehow “valid” when it purports to decode the original utterance.
The very name “Think Progress” sets the tone: It’s more important how you think than what you actually do. Without the right (“progressive”) mindset, we’ll all act like barbarians.
Corrollary: If any action, no matter how bad, is carried out WITH the correct (“progressive”) mindset, it can be forgiven.
I do think that words have power that the author can not entirely control.
Words & phrases themselves have a history.
The word “bitch” for example, can be used in a friendly way (see – Meredith Viera on The View) or it can be used as an insult.
But one obviously wants to be careful about using the word. I would be careful about using the phrase “tar baby” because of its history.
One of my English teachers liked to point to the Oxford English Dictionary as a invaluable source for fiction writers. Words not only have multiple definitions, they have a history of usage. When an author chooses a word, he should, ideally, be conscious of that history.
Anyways, words are always an inexact tool with which to capture meaning. It’s difficult to translate subtleties of meaning into language.
I suggest you commit this page to memory, just to be sure.
Ya quozing lushker.
Can I work the problem backwards?
John Kerry says that our soldiers are “terrorizing women and children” and then when called on it, claims he’s been misunderstood.
“Tar Baby” – colloquialism
“terrorizing” – verb
Tony Snow strikes me as a person unlikely to cave to the racism pimps. He knew what he was saying, especially if he did so twice. I kinda hope he does get flack for it, just so he can deal with it head-on, and publicly, putting the pimps to shame.
Sorry…..does my using the word “pimp” put me on a list of suspects to recive sensitivity training?
<blockquote>
Under this description, the utterer (Snow) is responsible for the entire history of the signifier’s usage.
<blockquote>
This needs a knowledge requirement. Sort of like the difference between publisher and distributor liability in defamation. Someone who publishes a magazine with a defamatory article in it is liable as if they wrote the article. Someone who distributes the magazine (say, a newstand) is only liable to the extent they have been given notice of the defamation.
Tony Snow is thus a distributor, not a publisher of the offensive content. He did not know about it. Arguably now he has notice. Though it is rather weak: dictionary.com doesn’t mention this sort of reading that thinkprogress proposes. We’d need further evidence of the harm that ‘tar baby’ can cause.
I think that’s why he did it in the first place.
Enter Jesse Jackson and his can’t-miss “slave ship” bit.
I think Jeff is being rather niggardly in his appreciation for his readers by not mentioning them by name.
Wow. For once, I might have to agree with Actus up to this point.
If he goes nuttier later, then I’ll reconsider.
TW: No, there’s no pressure on Tony Snow.
I would be wary of falling into the usage-history tarbaby, myself.
Well, “tar baby” was a reference to American culture. And any idea that was dreamed up on this continent, soaked as it is in the blood of innocents, dreamed up by the very people who spilled that blood, or people who look like those criminals, that idea shares somewhat in the crime itself.
Or something.
phew.. good thing Snow didn’t ask to not be flung into the briar patch.
Jeff, I’ve been following your comments in this area for awhile. While I acknowledge there can be cases where the listener adds their own meaning to what they hear, and that meaning may not be congruent with the speaker’s intention, that would be an instance of poor or unsuccessful communication. But even if you grant that the speaker’s intention is not the sole source to gain undertsanding, the idea that it is not the primary source (or, even more bizarrely, that it is irrelevant) would seem to go against the purpose of the speaker’s excercise—to communicate an idea accurately.
But that aside, what amuses me here is the environment in which this occurred. In general, average people don’t watch press conferences. And any information disseminated is likely to get filtered through a reporter. So when someone argues that Snow’s (obvious?) meaning may be misconstrued, aren’t they really saying that the assembled reporters—people who write for a living—are incapable of making the distinction? After all, if they feel the phrase is somehow loaded, couldn’t they reword it for their audience, while preserving Snow’s intent?
But, that of course, assumes they feel that Snow’s intent has at least some small bearing on the topic.
There’s an interesting related issue here for aggrieved identity groups. The group, usually led by it’s academic priesthood, may embark on a deliberate campaign to reclaim a word that had been viewed as pejorative and turn it into a neutral, positive, or preffered appelation.
The most successful examples, are I think Queer and Dyke. Heeb is probably less successful. (Though as I’ve noted before, you don’t hear “Heeb” or “Kike” much anymore. “Jew” or “Zionist” is considered pejorative enough for most anti-semites and their audiences.)
Now, someone not in the identity group may use the reclaimed word, but they have to use it carefully. Their conscious intentions and unconscious biases may be scrutinized by members of the identity group, and their political allies. “I’m taking a Queer Studies elective” is almost certainly OK. “My lit-crit prof is a Dyke” is more problematical.
“The N-Word” is a special case, since it’s reclamation project came from the ground up, and has not been wholely embraced by the African-American Studies academy, but it is a prime example of who’s “allowed” to use the word and who isn’t. (Even in this discussion, I clearly do not grant myself permission to use it.)
<blockquote>Under this description, the utterer (Snow) is responsible for the entire history of the signifier’s usage. Which, followed to it’s logical extreme suggests that it is language that controls the utterer, and not the other way around.</blockquote>
It has the secondary effect of, over time, turning the landscape of public discourse into a veritable minefield, to the point that no one other than a trained academic professional could possibly traverse it unscathed. It should be one of the articles of evidence in the case against the left which charges that they abandoned the forum under their own free will a long time ago, and have since spent their energies re-rigging the rules in their favor. This behavior betrays, at best, a gross cynicism by demonstrating a belief that who is right and who is wrong and by extension, ideas themselves is irrelevant, and meaning is only determined by who “wins.”
And frankly, I’m surprised Think Progress gave Snow a warning shot and simply didn’t jump in his shit with both boots as they did with Bennett and countless others. What’s up with that?
yours/
peter.
Think Progress – riiight.
There is no group of people more mired in the past than America’s current crop of ‘progressives’. Constant keening about the need to return to failed programs and paradigms from the past masquerades as progressive thought. Another clear example of how the left looks to the future unarmed with the lessons learned from the past would be their neverending angst over the self-immolation of Bill Clinton’s legacy. Any attempt to see the challenges of the present day as unchecked trends present in the leadership of the past administration raises cries of ‘Clenis’ as if that eradicates any responsibility. Unless of course the timeline is reeled back to the first Bush or Reagan administration.
Anyway, the left needs to be careful of Tony Snow. This guy is more than capable of piping the press corps into their own traps and then springing them from the outside.
The real question is, how many people are going to call Jeff a paste-eater for this post?
I was going to say I saw geoduck2’s point, but I didn’t want her to think I was going to cut or divide her opinion with a tool, either hand-operated or power-driven, having a thin metal blade or disk with a sharp, usually toothed edge, used for cutting wood, metal, or other hard materials.
Instead of “I’m not going to hug that tar-baby”, perhaps Snow could have used “I’m not going to try to wash the skidmarks out of those tighty-whities.”
Of course then he’d have to deal with the Briefs and Colitis groups.
So, a liberal is charging a conservative with racism due to lack of a better argument. In other news: dog bites man, sky found to be blue, earth appears to be round.
Coincidentally, I recently had to strongly counsel my boss against saying “tarbaby” in any context too. I’m no PC nut, but this is an archaic term best forgotten. Add to that list “coon tan” (sunglass tanlines on the face) as well. And my favorite local Thai restauran, Thaicoon, which I’m sure Tiger Woods will never care to visit.
BECAUSE OF THE SEEPAGE!!!
– Jehovah! Jehovah!
– Quiet! You’re only making it worse for yourself.
– How? I’m going to be stoned to death.
(with deepest apologies to Monty Python)
This is discussion segues nicely with an Anti-Harrassment/Discrimination training course my company recently required everyone to attend. During which we were told by a lawyer that intent of speech has no bearing on whether or not the hearer can file for harrassment and if the court will find for the plaintiff.
Proof of the above Corollary? Illinois has always been a bit “progressive”, so maybe.
TW: faith
Yeah, I got nothing.
What this country needs is a good five cent pejorative.
That’s not something I would monkey around with.
–Howard Cosell
That’s why it hasn’t been embraced.
A fun little experiment:
Type Iraq “tar baby” into Google.
Note how many of the immediate hits are from left-wing sites.
Funny how fast that phrase became unacceptable, isn’t it?
People with much larger brains than mine seem to devote inordinate time to examining the microstructure of meaning, the implications of suggestion, and the interpretation of ambiguity. My simple brain reacts to these exercises with protest, muttering that there is an intrinsic contradiction in the hope that the dissection of intent and definition will discern some uttermost certainty. To my little mind, this is like expecting the ultimate sense of a novel to be revealed by the analysis of the alphabetic construction of individual words.
I appreciate at least that the discipline of this study generates a conceptual vocabulary useful for examining and testing the validity of assertions.
For starters, it would be intensely satisfying to watch an avenging angel whoop the asses of those who describe themselves as “progressives†with the implication that any whose thoughts differ from theirs are retrograde moral lepers. That would bring regiments of thankful recruits to the study of intentionalism.
To pursue the illogic of the present criticism of Tony Snow, you will soon have reporters and editors finding evil intent in the choice of Snow simply because of the racist implications of his name: i.e., “Snow… white… pure… clean… frigid… rigid.. emotionless… emotionally unavailable… remote… slick… slippery…†(Somebody stop me!)
Reporters and editors are spawned by the action of sunlight on stagnant water.
After seeing it in numberless triumphant iterations, I commend the ringing challenge of the argument, “Oh, yeah? well, just… OH, YEAH?!?!?!â€Â
You know a “Corn Syrup Baby” would be really sticky.
Hey! Why do persist in using slurs every time you write? Are you so stupid you don’t realize that your use of ‘th*’ is demeaning to us Inarticulate-Americans?
The way these threads degenerate into one-upmanship free-for-alls, I think I’ll stay far, far away from this one.
We just introduced “Land o’ Goshen!” as our family “curse word substitute.” It leads to fewer raised eyebrows than when my four-year-old lets loose with her personal creation, “Holy crud!” And, as a bonus, if you find yourself in territory where Biblical references can get you in trouble from one side or the other, you can claim you were saying “‘tlantic Ocean!” which is what my nine-year-old thought we were saying at first.
A friend of mine thought her toddler’s calling her a “poop head” was incredibly cute until she realized that the child was using the harshest term she knew toward her. Call it the Dark Side of intentionalism. (I still think it’s cute.)
While it is to be hoped that when Tony is called on this he launches into an erudite defense of the rights of the ‘utterer’ vis-a-vis the ‘receiver’, but if he fancies a quiet life he can always say:
“I was being ironic man!”
It’s the same old shit – just another day. I hope Tony does not let the asshats hijack another phrase. This isn’t quite as bold and blatent as ODub’s exclusivity claim to “eloquent”, but pretty damn close.
I agree that certain words have differing meanings according to usage. But words standing alone, without any context or contributing signifiers such as adjectives or tone of voice or volume, etc. are not what we are discussing. Every one in that room probably understood Snow’s intent; if they didn’t they certainly weren’t very good at their job.
cirby, I googled that and yes, funny how some words are allowed to only one side. Just as slurring gay men is allowed only to the left, impuning drug addiction behavor is oly allowed to the left. Even making outright racists commentary ala slant eyed whatits to michelle or step and fetch it to Colin Powell.
because of the hypocracy!!!!
Poor Joel Chandler Harris. What did he do to deserve this?
Oh, I forgot – he was born.
Point of distinction:
Referring to a situation as a tarbaby: faithful to original usage.
Referring to a black person as a tarbaby: indulging in racial epithets.
Practice being able to distinguish between these two, and object only when the usage is either ambiguous or overtly bigoted, and you’ll be less likely to be taken for someone who is craving the hoof-based adhesive.
And situations involving black people?
Ha! Gotcha! I believe that puts me one up.
Just make sure you clean really well around the ears, afterward.
And now we head into overtime.
Overtime?!
No wonder the Tar Heels – Fighting Illini game isn’t on!
(Alright, so I’m new at this. Back the bench I go.)
Hmmmm.
Frankly as long as nobody calls me “You damn dirty chink bastard” I don’t care.
And that’s because I’m of Korean stock, not Chinese.
Now if they call me “You damn dirty GOOK bastard”, well then. *shrug* truth is truth man.
Man! ed,
You write with like zero accent. (leaning forward) HOW. LONG. HAVE. YOU. BEEN. IN. THIS. COUNTRY?
You don’t even have to get that convoluted. Just say that you were referring to Goshen, NY.
Personnally I prefer to insult the chinks with zipperhead and slant-eye, except when they are friends of mine, then I use ‘Jap’ or ‘Asian’. Unless they are one of the homos chained together in Jeff’s basement, in which case I refer to them as Actus and prozacula, or MF.
TW: When, as in when will you free your intellectual gulag of minorities, Jeff?
I shot at some coons the other day. They were digging around the trash cans out back. We all know how dirty those sneaky little coons are and I can’t have them hanging around the house. It lowers the property value, the way they trash stuff.
(I can’t wait for my warning email from think progressive, it’ll be great!)
BTW, Jeff, they came for coons and you did not protest, but when they come for the Armadilloes…
Now what would an intentionalist have to say about this one?
Oh…something like…..IGNORE ACTHOLE!
That would be convenient. Yes.
And wise.
And necessary.
Not to mention wishful. Yes.
Not hearing from the lard between your ears, actuse, is my idea of heaven.
tw: Indeed, please refrain from marginalizing my intention to make my utterances “mean†what you say they mean. I believe you have lard between your ears. There, I said it again.
Did you intend to say intellectual, Vercingtorix? Because that’s what came out.
LINGUISTIC OPPORTUNIST! RHETORICAL ESCAPIST!
“I seem to see before me the smiling faces of thousands of children – some young and fresh and some wearing the friendly masks of age, but all children at heart – and not an unfriendly face among them. And while I am trying hard to speak the right word, I seem to hear a voice lifted above the rest, saying: ‘You have made some of us happy.’ And so I feel my heart fluttering and my lips trembling and I have to bow silently, and turn away and hurry into the obscurity that fits me best.”
From the ”Preface and Dedication to the New Edition,” UNCLE REMUS: His Songs and His Sayings, by Joel Chandler Harris (1849-1908).
Poor Mr. Harris, to have the words he’s spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Thank you, O Political Left, for all you have done. It goes without saying that no one could have done that better.
And because of it’s history, one could also be careful about using the phrase “tar baby”.
Evidently.
Or onto weblogs, it would appear.
A long-time friend of mine’s last name is ‘Coon’. Yelling out his name made for much hilarity at the intergrated high school we both went to, viz: “Hey, Coon!”, or, “Anybody seen that Coon guy around?” After awhile, it was safer just to call him “Needles”.
“And if one cannot translate subtleties of meaning into language, what can one translate them into?”
What else do we have?
You really aren’t demonstrating a ‘rapier-like wit’ there, are you?
Hint – look up “rapier” if you are unsure of what it means.
Google “tar baby” and “Molly Ivins”, oh my:
Me: “So do you think Tony Snow was being intentionally racist with his ‘tar baby’ remark, or was it just a symptom of the underlying racist attitudes prevalent among those of the Bush Administration and its neo-con power base?”
Lawn Jockey: “Man, how the hell should I know? All I care about is checking out the legs on those flamingo babes across the way. You should try it some time instead of wasting my time with this pseudo-racist bullcrap.”
Me: …
Lawn Jockey: “So are you here to touch up my ‘features’ or what?”
Why doest this thread persist when the very last word hath been spoken?
My God, do I love Molly. I must have missed all them thar dead ‘uns when I was over there. Unless Halliburton had managed to have them all swept into mass graves when nobody was looking, right Molly?
Major John:
I can’t figure out how to make the link light off automatically here in Brer Goldstein’s briar patch, but here’s the link to the column I pulled the quote from:
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2001/650
It’s a classic. Notice where she emphasizes how tracking down the terror bunch is going to take years……..
Well, if I wanted to be accused of a racial slur, I could point out that treating ‘tar baby’ as a racial insult is a niggardly description of the story…
Oh no, Niger’s uranium is sure to come up again. Just don’t be niggardly with the explanations, Tony.
North Korea’s teeing up a long-range missile. Iran is spouting genocidal rhetoric and talking about hyperproferating to the whole ummah. Maybe, just maybe, we can haul ourselves to the level of racial harmony which existed in the 1970’s?
But I’m a cracker-ass redneck honky, so what do I know?
Major John—Shoot, son, what do YOU know about Afghanistan? Were you on the barstool next to Molly’s or sumthin’?
I always thought the ‘moral’ of the “tarbaby” was in it’s superficial attractiveness… it appears to be an “easy target”, but it is only after a ‘willing engagement’ that the self-induced situation proves itself to be “a problem virtually unsolvable”.
Let’s not forget the “Tar-Baby Principle”:
You become attached to what you oppose.
SB: lost
is that on?
Hmmm.
Five Dorra! Rove you rong time!
Roo down hall, to reft!
lol.
sw: “reading”. Man this spam filter is something else.
Hmmmm.
Actually I was at a friend’s house for Easter dinner once and his mother-in-law used the term “slinky-eyed” to refer to asians. Everyone just stopped dead no matter what they were doing. My friend’s Catholic priest, a great guy by the name of Father Ed, was in mid-chew.
Me, I laughed at the expressions on their faces.
Anybody who takes this crap seriously needs to experience REAL discrimination.
The difference is easily understood.
What about those words which are turned on their ear in modern (fad) usage, seen as perfectly acceptable by ‘progressive’ linguists?
“bad” “wicked”
Or, if the N-word is partially reclaimed within a certain community then why is it’s positive/neutral usage usually lacking the ‘R’: “niggaz”? Obviously plenty of black commentators and comics have felt strongly enough to use the full word in a negative context; see Richard Pryor and Chris Rock.
Ooh! I struck a bit of gold. I was googling “tar baby” and “Bierce” and found that last month a commenter (BlaiseP) at DailyKos had used the “tar baby” allegory in one of their posts. Here’s the google cache link
He refers to George Sensenbrenner wishing “to be freed of the Tar Baby of Bush.”
There was no outrage in response to his blatant racism.
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRACY!
ahem… or even THE HYPOCRISY.
Well, nice HTML you’ve got there, Glen.
But you make a good point which was also been raised at Crooks and Liars. “Lilly White” points out a number of recent uses which seem to have flown under the progressive radar.
A Google News search for “Tar baby, -Snow” ought to put the thing to bed. But it won’t because we’re talking about lunatics.
Glen  A polite suggestion: if you don’t know how to post a fucken link, don’t post a fucken link…
….page… too… wide… falling…. over.
The page wouldn’t be too wide if you had a 19” monitor set to 1600 x 1200.
BECAUSE OF THE BEING 44 FUCKING YEARS OLD!
Hmmm.
Frankly I’d rather be FUCKING 2X 22 YEAR OLDS!
But hey, that’s me.
Remember you’re only as old as the ones you’re feeling up.
Well, she’s been lying about her age, so, no telling how old I really am.
Hmmm.
Well that can be a problem.
After 25 Years, I Finally Figured Out How To Impress High-School Girls
I hope she hasn’t been lying about her age in that direction!
if you don’t know how to post a fucken link, don’t post a fucken link…
I see that I have made a mistake because of my ignorance of posting procedures, and I apologize. Thanks to Jeff for fixing the link to repair the damage I inadvertently caused. I will not repeat that mistake in the future.
And to Great Mencken’s Ghost, in the spirit of your constructive criticism, allow me to offer this: You might try to make your polite suggestions, you know, polite. Ha! Just kidding! While I only now realize that complete foreknowledge of posting commands is mandatory for even a neophyte, I was never so ignorant as to think that civility and forbearance were even so much as optional on message boards. Carry on!
I coined a word, “unequivocable” as in the use of clear, concise, standard English makes one’s communication unequivocable. It means able to be understood without any possibility of equivocation. Rather than referring to hugging a tarbaby, since it has become fashionable to deplore Uncle Remus, he could have said, I hesitate to comment on a program whose very existence I can neither confirm or deny.” It wouldn’t kill the president to have someone sound intelligent for him.
Sure. You just keep coining new words and let us know which ones we should stay a way from until you’ve finished your reconstitution of the English language using neologisms.
But make sure you send out a memo. Otherwise people could get confused.
How can urging the use of clarity and conciseness be termed reconstituting the language with neologisms? Although you meant that as an insult, by accusing me of being a neologist you have placed me on a plane with Shakespeare, and for that I thank you. As every linguist knows, the only languages whose lexicon does not grow and expand are dead languages. I was merely speaking of common sense political expedience for one who is appointed spokesmodel for an unpopular politico. I do not particularly care what you say to whom nor when nor where–nor how improper your grammar, spelling and usage are since you are not a living symbol of my homeland in the world. I am speaking of an intelligent approach to communication–the purpose of speech and writing, no?–, not constitutional rights, or whatever you,in your self-righteous indignation, are implying.
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[…] headline: “Bush inartfully suggests Saddam killed Mandela.” Not only do they have a funny, jerky little habit of misunderstanding members of the administration when the opportunity allows, their rebuttal to […]
[…] noted is simply the natural order of things) not just idiots like Oliver Willis or the folks at Think Progress, but also Bill Kristol, the White House, and many on the right side of the sphere who were up in […]
[…] the charge is doing. And I have done this when the subject was [someone other than me, as well]: Tony Snow, or Captain Ed, or Larry Summers, or Bill Bennett, and on and on and on. THAT is the way I oppose […]
[…] and the inevitable and inexorable totalitarian end game of progressivism, prepared you all for what to look for, and how best to combat it, in the realm of social […]
[…] are now actually helping perpetuate what, at least on Patterico’s part, he knows to be a lie** — an out of context quote whose real meaning he admits to understanding, but whose […]
[…] example showed, this procedure of finding offense can happen no matter how careful you are. As the Snow example showed, someone can even concede your intent, then still turn around and argue that the signifiers […]
[…] we are (revisit Bennett), or regardless of what we are acknowledged to actually mean (revisit Snow, who evidently was using “code words,” as professor Dyson, borrowing from a couple of […]
[…] effects of such a mindset — in the (often disingenuous) outrage aimed at Bill Bennett or Tony Snow or Rush Limbaugh or guys with male dogs who walk too close to some suspicious old Negro gentleman […]
[…] easily identified because he or she happens to be a white conservative like, say, Bill Bennett or Tony Snow or Rush Limbaugh or Laura Ingraham, et […]
[…] effects of such a mindset — in the (often disingenuous) outrage aimed at Bill Bennett or Tony Snow or Rush Limbaugh or guys with male dogs who walk too close to some suspicious old Negro gentleman […]