Tuesday, September 16, 2003
A Question of Grammar
In an excellent article in the Boston Globe, Anne E. Kornblut and Bryan Bender do what Tim Russert didn't do in his interview with vice-president Dick Cheney on Sunday: point out that most or all of the things Cheney said were demonstrably false.
The end may be nearing (we hope) for the media's obsequious tolerance of Cheney's cold-blooded chutzpah, but our eye was caught by one word in this sentence.
The word that caught our eye is "proving". "There is no evidence proving the Iraq regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks..."
"Proving"? There's no evidence of any kind connecting Iraq to 9/11 -- at least none that hasn't been completely discredited. By any standard of accuracy the word should be "that", so that the sentence reads:
"But there is no evidence that the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush officials said."
By substituting the word "proving", the unnamed Bush official rhetorically suggests that there is indeed evidence -- just not enough to prove it.
It's kind of like saying, "there's no evidence proving the moon is made of cheese."
Try it yourself. Read both these sentences and compare the impressions they leave:
1. "There is no evidence proving the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks."
2. "There is no evidence that the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks."
They're both technically true, but only the second one tells the whole truth as the facts currently are known. The first one intentionally leaves space for what one might call "interpretation".
The second sentence by no means cuts off the possibility of evidence surfacing -- it simple states the truth as is now known. So there's no reason to leave the space for interpretation the first one does. Unless you're doing it on purpose.
(We're reminded of the Monty Python skit in which Graham Chapman plays a Royal Navy admiral who insists that "there is absolutely no cannibalism in the Royal Navy, none, and when I say none, I mean of course that there is a certain amount. However...")
The Bush administration may be the greatest manipulators of language since Groucho and Chico -- not that this is news to anyone. But the million little ways they do it illustrates just how professionally crafted their whole act is. It's as if their every word were scripted by the people who advertise herbal health supplements. You know, you show a paunchy guy taking a pill, then you show him and he's rippled with muscles, smiling and holding the bottle of pills, while down the bottom, in 2 point white letters on a beige background it says "these pills don't build no muscles."
Remember the president's State of the Union speech claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Nigeria? So do we. But as we all know now, he didn't actually say that; he said British intelligence had learned it (which they hadn't, but that's another story), so he technically hadn't lied. It was true that the British claimed they'd learned it, though. So there.
It's like having a mortgage attorney running the country. Well, except for Cheney -- he's more like Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life". But the rest of them make Philadelphia lawyers look like Gary Cooper.
Coincidentally on this very point, in a letter to the editor in this week's The Nation, a reader named Mitchell J. Freedman from Newbury Park, California quotes the late I.F. Stone in an eerily prescient observation:
The end may be nearing (we hope) for the media's obsequious tolerance of Cheney's cold-blooded chutzpah, but our eye was caught by one word in this sentence.
- "But there is no evidence proving the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush officials said."
The word that caught our eye is "proving". "There is no evidence proving the Iraq regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks..."
"Proving"? There's no evidence of any kind connecting Iraq to 9/11 -- at least none that hasn't been completely discredited. By any standard of accuracy the word should be "that", so that the sentence reads:
"But there is no evidence that the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush officials said."
By substituting the word "proving", the unnamed Bush official rhetorically suggests that there is indeed evidence -- just not enough to prove it.
It's kind of like saying, "there's no evidence proving the moon is made of cheese."
Try it yourself. Read both these sentences and compare the impressions they leave:
1. "There is no evidence proving the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks."
2. "There is no evidence that the Iraqi regime knew about or took part in the Sept. 11 attacks."
They're both technically true, but only the second one tells the whole truth as the facts currently are known. The first one intentionally leaves space for what one might call "interpretation".
The second sentence by no means cuts off the possibility of evidence surfacing -- it simple states the truth as is now known. So there's no reason to leave the space for interpretation the first one does. Unless you're doing it on purpose.
(We're reminded of the Monty Python skit in which Graham Chapman plays a Royal Navy admiral who insists that "there is absolutely no cannibalism in the Royal Navy, none, and when I say none, I mean of course that there is a certain amount. However...")
The Bush administration may be the greatest manipulators of language since Groucho and Chico -- not that this is news to anyone. But the million little ways they do it illustrates just how professionally crafted their whole act is. It's as if their every word were scripted by the people who advertise herbal health supplements. You know, you show a paunchy guy taking a pill, then you show him and he's rippled with muscles, smiling and holding the bottle of pills, while down the bottom, in 2 point white letters on a beige background it says "these pills don't build no muscles."
Remember the president's State of the Union speech claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Nigeria? So do we. But as we all know now, he didn't actually say that; he said British intelligence had learned it (which they hadn't, but that's another story), so he technically hadn't lied. It was true that the British claimed they'd learned it, though. So there.
It's like having a mortgage attorney running the country. Well, except for Cheney -- he's more like Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life". But the rest of them make Philadelphia lawyers look like Gary Cooper.
Coincidentally on this very point, in a letter to the editor in this week's The Nation, a reader named Mitchell J. Freedman from Newbury Park, California quotes the late I.F. Stone in an eerily prescient observation:
- "Now, government lies, but it doesn't like to lie literally. Because a literal, flat and obvious lie tends to be caught up. So, what they do is, they become the masters of the disingenuous statement, of phrasing something in such a way that the honest, normal and unwary reader gets one impression--that he is supposed to get. And then, three months later, when he discovers it's not true and he goes back to complain, they say, 'That isn't what we said. Look at it carefully.' You look at it carefully, and sure enough, it was really double-talk, it didn't say exactly what you thought."
