"tacit silence"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 10/16/06, Chris F Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:
>
> Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> >
> > On Oct 16, 2006, at 5:35 AM, Dan Lassiter wrote:
> >
> >
> >> An headline from this weekend's New York Times:
> >>
> >> "Tacit silence on stem cell research in Missouri race" (I may have
> >> the end a bit wrong, but the tacit silence bit is the point)
> >>
> >> I got only 543 google hits for "tacit silence", not all of them real and
> >> mostly from blogs etc. Has anyone run into "tacit" in this meaning
> >> in a major source before?
> >
> > what *is* the intended meaning here?
> >
> FWIW, the title has been changed to "Missouri Candidates Step Lightly on
> Stem Cell Measure" in the NYT
> (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/us/politics/15stem.html?em&ex=1161057600&en=10aa439d9d763f9e&ei=5087%0A).

But the "tacit silence" headline is what appeared in the print
edition, as confirmed by Nexis. A Nexis search also turns up many more
exx, most of which seem to mean something like 'a tacit agreement to
remain silent':

-----
Washington Post, July 8, 1992
Anyone who doubts this need only consider the tacit silence of the
nine admirals when the Tailhook aviators jeered at the prospect of Top
Gun with a womb.
-----
New York Times, June 13, 1993
A tacit silence on sexuality, widely known now as "don't ask, don't
tell," is the de facto policy both in relationships up and down
company hierarchies and between co-workers at the same level.
-----
New York Times, February 11, 1994
Mr. Hayden, a 54-year-old state senator from Santa Monica, said in an
interview today that he was running because of a "tacit silence among
Republicans and Democrats about campaign reform and lobbying reform."
-----
St. Petersburg Times (Florida), January 24, 1995
It also was disturbing to view the tacit silence displayed by the
other  commissioners following the discussion.
-----
New York Times, August 13, 2000
In many homes, the survivors and their children maintained a tacit
silence about the wartime experiences.
-----

...etc.


--Ben Zimmer

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