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