Bush Inaugural Malapropism

Joanne M. Despres jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM
Thu Sep 15 13:58:20 UTC 2005


CNN transcriptions can be downright unintelligible, as anyone
who's tried to follow a broadcast using only close-captioning (while
working out at the health club, for example) could attest.

Joanne Despres

On 15 Sep 2005, at 8:02, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Sep 2005, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>
> > Has there ever be any discussion in the media or elsewhere of whether
> > George W. Bush misspoke the oath of office when he became president in
> > 2001?  The transcripts by CNN, FDCH Political Transcripts, and the Fort
> > Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel all have him saying "safely execute the office"
> > rather than "faithfully execute the office."  CNN and FDCH also have a
> > more trivial error, his inserting the word "the" before "president."
>
> In fairness to Mr. Bush, who has so many other problems right now, I
> should note that I have subsequently listened to audio on the web, on
> which he delivers the 2001 oath of office without any slip-ups.  So this
> ends up being a story about astonishingly sloppy transcription by CNN and
> the other sources rather than a story about Bush's malapropism.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
> Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
>   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
> Yale Law School                             forthcoming
> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



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