[Ads-l] WSJ vs. Trump on "I('d)"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jan 17 07:43:39 UTC 2018


> Apologies, that was meant for a different list.

Yet, somehow, it seems to be relevant here.

"He frequently omits modals and auxiliaries and enjoys inhabiting a kind of
beatific flowing present from which he may pluck ideas about the future and
experiences from the past without the bother of a grammatical change to
mark the departure of time and tense."

from the languagelog link at the bottom - the comments are pretty good too
- though the best may be the slightly deflating:
He said something that we can interpret in a way that makes sense or a way
that makes no sense. Which should we choose? He's not saying he has a good
relationship with his North Korean counterpart. He's saying that under some
unspecified circumstances he could have such a relationship. That's all.
It's not a huge or even unlikely claim, and it may even display a glimmer
of goodwill.

though his delusional sense of importance is supported by the former
interpretation.

On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 12:13 PM, Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:

> "He frequently omits modals and auxiliaries and enjoys inhabiting a kind of
> beatific flowing present from which he may pluck ideas about the future and
> experiences from the past without the bother of a grammatical change to
> mark the departure of time and tense."
>
> from the languagelog link at the bottom - the comments are pretty good too
> - though the best may be the slightly deflating:
> He said something that we can interpret in a way that makes sense or a way
> that makes no sense. Which should we choose? He's not saying he has a good
> relationship with his North Korean counterpart. He's saying that under some
> unspecified circumstances he could have such a relationship. That's all.
> It's not a huge or even unlikely claim, and it may even display a glimmer
> of goodwill.
>
> though his delusional sense of importance is supported by the former
> interpretation.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> Date: Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 9:41 AM
> Subject: WSJ vs. Trump on "I('d)"
> To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu
>
>
> Apologies if someone has already posted to the list on this; if so, I
> missed it.
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/trump-wall-
> street-journal-fake-news.html
>
> PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Sunday morning ratcheted up a dispute
> with The Wall Street Journal, accusing the newspaper of purposely
> misquoting him as saying in an interview that he has a good relationship
> with the leader of North Korea.
>
> In two tweets from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., the president
> applied a familiar denigrating term — “fake news” — to a Journal report on
> Thursday that said Mr. Trump had boasted during an interview: “I probably
> have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un. I have relationships with
> people. I think you people are surprised.”
>
> Mr. Trump insisted that he had actually started his sentence with the
> contraction “I’d,” not “I,” which would change the meaning from a
> surprising boast of an existing relationship into a prediction that he
> could have a good relationship with the dictator if he wanted it.
>
> Mr. Trump’s attack came hours after Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House
> press secretary, posted on Twitter what she called the “official audio
> showing WSJ misquoting @POTUS.” She also posted an image with the words
> “FAKE NEWS” in a bright red banner and saying: “THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
> FAKE NEWS IS AT IT AGAIN. FALSELY QUOTING PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
> ===========================
>
> Apparently the analysts have not yet determined the presence or absence of
> the mood indicator.  When I read the Times piece, I figured Mark Liberman
> is (or would be) on the case, and I was right.
>
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=36251
>
>
> LH
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>
>
>
> --
>
> a
>
> Andy Bach,
> afbach at gmail.com
> 608 658-1890 cell
> 608 261-5738 wk
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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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