The Korean(-American) passive "himself"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Having knocked Fox News here frequently, genuine fairness compels me [note "dangling participle"] to question the claim that Fox News "confidently identified" the VT shooter as a Chinese Al Qaeda member.

  I had the channel on all day, and at some point into the story somebody wondered whether
  the shooter, identified as "Asian," could conceivably have been "linked" (I believe that was the word used) to Al Qaeda.  Nobody elaborated on the suggestion, and I did not hear it repeated.  It was essentially a throwaway line.

  If Fox News ever claimed that Cho was actually connected with Al Qaeda, I'd like to know about it.

  JL
   "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
Subject: Re: The Korean(-American) passive "himself"?
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On Apr 20, 2007, at 10:08 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:

> I think the overriding concern here is the right to be presumed
> innocent
> until found guilty in court in the US. If the reporter said that
> Cho did
> it, then there might even be a case of libel or bad reporting at
> the least.

but in this case (and many similar ones, like the Columbine
shootings), there can never be a court finding of guilt, because
there can never be a trial. when the identity of the perpetrator(s)
is clear, no one ever has a problem with identifying them as such,
even though they are (and forever will be) "innocent" in the legal
sense.

another case where legal language and ordinary language don't work
quite the same.

arnold

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