First "is," now "the"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue May 15 01:46:41 UTC 2012


On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Some thoughts on this from Barbara Partee:
>
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3958

Barbara writes,

If the claim that "_the_ purpose" in "for the purpose of" can only
mean "_the sole_ purpose" is the best defense Edwards has, I suspect
he’s in trouble.

Not IMO. That's an excellent defense. Otherwise, it would be possible
for the prosecution simply to adjust the interpretation of any law to
yield the desired outcome. A good person to consult on this point is
ExxonMobile or a random investment bank.

Surely, I'm not the only one to have noticed how trivial it is to
reverse the intention of a seemingly-straightforward law like
Affirmative Action by merely asserting that, though the law clearly
states X, when said law is correctly interpreted, it means Y.

Hence, _the_ clearly means _a_ and, instead of a creep cheating on his
wife, we have a textbook instance of electoral fraud attempting to
subvert the electoral process and destroy the very foundation of our
liberties! That'e why we have to ensure that no one without two forms
of picture ID and a notarized copy of his birth certificate or other
proof of citizenship can vote!

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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