Tuesday, April 6, 2010

beating dead horses


Why Does Palin Talk That Way?

John McWhorter dissects Sarah Palin's speech and what stands out is "its utter subjectivity: that is, she speaks very much from the inside of her head, as someone watching the issues from a considerable distance."

"This reminds me of toddlers who speak from inside their own experience in a related way: they will come up to you and comment about something said by a neighbor you've never met, or recount to you the plot of an episode of a TV show they have no way of knowing you've ever heard of. Palin strings her words together as if she were doing it for herself -- meanings float by, and she translates them into syntax in whatever way works, regardless of how other people making public statements do it."

He concludes: "The modern American typically relates warmly to the use of English to the extent that it summons the oral -- 'You betcha,' 'Yes we can!' -- while passing from indifference to discomfort to the extent that its use leans towards the stringent artifice of written language. As such, Sarah Palin can talk, basically, like a child and be lionized by a robust number of perfectly intelligent people as an avatar of American culture. And linguistically, let's face it: she is."

Read more: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/04/06/why_does_palin_talk_that_way.html#ixzz0kMrsBevt

at last, a solution most catholics can live with

Sunday, April 4, 2010

humoresque

WASHINGTON—Following revelations last week that priests in Wisconsin and Italy were responsible for molesting more than 250 young deaf boys, millions around the country expressed shock and outrage over the very thing they had been endlessly milking as a source of humor for the past 10 years. "I am stunned and disgusted that this incredibly abhorrent thing that I was just joking with a coworker about the other day has actually occurred," Seattle resident Jess Voigt said. "Even though I have been humorously referring to this particular subject almost nonstop for the past decade, I am absolutely blindsided by this unexpected and disturbing news." Members of the American populace vowed to shake their heads and drop the subject from their ribald office banter for at least two weeks before drawing on these unfortunate events to make approximately 13 million more jokes about choirboys.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

BRIGHT idea of the day

And Jeff Soto tweets: “$10 to first person who buys two iPads today, 
dresses up as Moses and comes out of an Apple Store holding them over their head.”

oneaday vitamin