Alexander Haig

Bill Palmer w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET
Sun Feb 21 12:31:52 UTC 2010


General Haig, well known for his various military and governmental accomplishments, may also be remembered by some for his unique approach to language.

Keith Allan in "Linguistic meaning" parodies this with an example from The London Guardian from 3 Feb 1981 of a hypothetical piece that might have been written about him, using his style:

 "...General Haig has contexted the Polish watchpot somewhat nuancely.  How though, if the situation decontrols, can he stoppage it, mountingly conflagrating? Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed his audtioners by abnormalling his responds, so that verbs were nouns, nouns verbed, and adjectives adverbized. He techniqued a new way to vocabulary his thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he had actually implicationed, etc, etc..."


Bill Palmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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