Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Another Slatism; Well, Not Quite.--
In my [1]last post, I pointed out that, if one ignored the real
difficulties of the spoken word, then almost anyone could be caught in
lots of infelicities or passages that would look odd out of context,
passages that were as bad as most "Bushisms." I offered two "Slatisms"
by Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, who is nonetheless remarkably fluent
and careful in his speech, including this:
"Well this a, of course, when we were up there, we were talking
skiing a little bit, and we were were talking talking politics."
([2]NPR, Jan. 23, 2004)
I was just surfing and found that Weisberg had co-written the memoirs
of Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. The first Rubin transcript
I found online had [3]this quotation on the front page (the interview
was with ABC):
"For the following three and a half years ago we have had
horrendous fiscal policy over the last three and a half years."
I did not find a tape, so I am not sure if the quotation is correct
(it may well not be). If Bush had said this (or even if he had not,
but there was a false transcript floating around), it probably would
have been a Bushism.
But Rubin's meaning is clear and it's spoken English, just like most
of Bush's verbal gaffes.
Again, I am not saying that Rubin isn't more fluent than most (I'll
bet he is)--and from what little I know, he was a superb Treasury
Secretary. Normally, you would have to be a Slate editor to treat an
infelicity like Rubin's (or most of Bush's) as even worth comment, let
alone ridicule.
Of course, technically this is not a Slatism, because it was
"committed" by Weisberg's co-author, but I think it makes my point
that, if almost anyone were miked as often as George W. Bush is, there
would be hundreds of awkward and inarticulate statements to
ridicule--if one were inclined to be as churlish and unfair as the
editors of Slate.
I suspect that the reason that Slate continues the series is that
collections of these Bushisms are the sorts of books that people pick
up as they are checking out at bookstore cash registers.
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_27-2005_03_05.shtml#1109610995
2. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1613990
3. http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=132617&page=1
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