[NIFL-ESL:8578] re: Re: Impending Attack on Iraq

From: Joe Little (fyi@americanliteracy.com)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 16:43:27 EST 

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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 16:43:27 -0500
From: Joe Little <fyi@americanliteracy.com>
Subject: [NIFL-ESL:8578] re: Re: Impending Attack on Iraq
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>  William Safire on Language, Hide and Seek. The article was about the use
>  of the jargon of children's games as metaphor for war, the use of nuclear
>  weapons, the 'game' that Saddam is playing, etc. Interesting to note that no
>  one was using the jargon used for children's behavior to describe the fearful
>  behavior of the grownups involved. I find a lot of things that i hear from the 
>  government amazing, thoughtless, and foolish. One thing i never thought i'd
>  hear from our government is a need for a preemptive strike against another


Another excellent William Safire column--actually, John Rosenthal was sitting in
for him--is titled Corpus Linguistics (8/18/02). It speaks of the new database and 
search engine tools that are providing 'ground support' (so to speak) in the battle
being fought (there i go again) by descriptivists to bring text more in line with the 
common, everyday speech that we hear on a regular basis.     As for preemptive
strikes, i gess that most of us wish we had done one back in, oh let's say, 1939 
(or, for that matter, months and years before 9/11).

Hindsight is 20/20.

Joe Little

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