Re: Re: Origin of word "redskin"

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 5/27/05 11:08:17 PM, nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes:


> I'm aware of the work that Ron Butters and David Barnhart did as paid
> experts for the Washington Redskins in responding to the petition to
> cancel the team's mark on the grounds it was disparaging. (I served
> as expert for the other side, pro bono.)
>

It is not easy to see this sentence as anything other than an ad hominem
disparagement of the work that David and I did on this particular case. As such,
it might seem to readers that it does nothing to serve the cause of rational
discourse about the question of the meaning of the term REDSKINS in contemporary
American English. However, Dr. Nunberg does inadvertantly raise a question of
real import, and one that, moreover, has been discussed a good deal by many
of the scholars who do expert witnessing for pay.

There certainly are dangers in paid scholarship that is in the service of a
client: one must vigorously guard against the temptation to find only the
results that will help the client who is footing the bill. These dangers are well
known to people who take "forensic" work seriously, and there is at least one
international organization, the IAFL, where such issues are discussed and given
no little thought. The writings of Roger Shuy, perhaps the most respected of
all American linguists who work in this field, are filled with serious
discussions of   just such ethical issues.

But Dr. Nunberg's implication that pro bono work somehow leads to superior
product is one with which I respectfully disagree. I've done a good deal of
"expert" witnessing, both pro bono and pro dinero, and it is clear to me that
(though this is less-frequently discussed) pro bono "expert" witnessing is frought
with its own ethical dangers. Rarely do experts take on pro bono cases unless
they feel strongly that they are on the moral "right" side--that their
"expert" witnessing must do "work" (as Dr. Nunberg put it in the article that Arnold
Zwicky recommended to us) regardless of the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth.