Comments on: Presidential campaign ads

By: JO'N

JO'N — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 13:08:00 +0000

Steve— Although I usually prefer not to take the fun out of a heartfelt political rant, I feel the need to point out the misconceptions in your grammatical analysis of Mr. Gere’s comment. 1. Since the use of they/them/their are a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun goes back many centuries, it predates any “PC” debates that you blame for it, unless the “PC” debate you have in mind is whether the Queen of England should allow the practice of Roman Catholicism. 2. Your rephrasing of “that man” as “that PERSON OF INDISCRIMINATE GENDER” is a misunderstanding of Mr. Gere’s comment. It’s clear that he wasn’t using “that man” as a co-referential variable for “anyone”—if he had been, then he certainly would have used “that person”—or, indeed, “they”—instead. Instead, Mr. Gere was referring to a specific individual with “that man”, not to “anyone”. (We know that because that way, the joke makes sense. I guess you didn’t get it.) So, in terms of grammatical correctness, political correctness AND sense of humor, the score seems to be RIchard Gere 3, Steve 0.

By: jeff

jeff — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 10:51:52 +0000

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/974855

By: PG

PG — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 00:05:02 +0000

A particularly interesting retrospective with campaign finance reform legally viable (having been approved by the Supreme Court) but functionally dead.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 22:16:57 +0000

“Never trust anyone who believes that God is exclusively on their side. [—- long pause —-] Especially when that man is the President.”” I always enjoy illustrating how the PC destruction of the use of ‘he’ as an arbitrary pronoun has simply confused everybody to no real benefit. Even PC Richard Gere can’t help but screw up. He’s got the subconscious instinct right (“anyONE who believes God is on THEIR side”) which sacrifices grammatical correctness for political correctness (as any English professor will tell you, that’s the exact right thing to do). But in the very next sentence, he sins twice. Not only is that hypothetical individual identified as a ‘man’, but that ‘man’ is defined as President (or, rather, it is then assumed that the undefined President would be a ‘man’). Perhaps it should be rewritten: “Never trust anyone who believes that God is exclusively on HIS OR HER side. [—- long pause —-] Especially when that PERSON OF INDISCRIMINATE GENDER is the President.” Not quite as much ‘zing,’ but at least the professors in the crowd will leave him alone. steve

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 22:11:29 +0000

And if you visit New York, the museum is a terrific place to visit. It’s in Astoria in Queens, which is probably why it doesn’t get the tourist traffic that some of the other museums get.

By: X

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 22:04:35 +0000

Also some sweet stuff (ok ok—“research”) being done on the new Presidential Ads at readmylipz.com, which is partially sponsored by Muhlenberg’s public policy center.

By: christopher ball

christopher ball — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 19:50:43 +0000

Especially good are the “The Man from Abilene” for Eisenhower and “Platform Double Talk” for Stevenson. The Ike ad has this line:

FIRST ANNOUNCER: The nation, haunted by the stalemate in Korea, looks to Eisenhower. Eisenhower knows how to deal with the Russians. He has met Europe’s leaders, has got them working with us. Elect the number one man for the number one job of our time. November 4th vote for peace. Vote for Eisenhower.

An ad praising cooperation with allies—how relevant history can be. Replace Korea with Iraq, Russians with terrorists, and Eisenhower with Kerry, and the Kerry campaign has an ad. CLB