semantic state of the union

[Dennis Baron]

A new post on the Web of Language:

"President Bush delivered his annual State of the Union address  
tonight, and what was remarkable about the 5,000 word speech was that  
it included no new slogans.  That’s right, read his lips, “No new  
slogans.” . . . There was little in the way of quotable phrases for  
the public to latch on to in this year’s speech.  No only that, the  
president didn’t have many of his old, familiar catch phrases to  
stumble over, either. ... Comparing key words from this year’s speech  
and last gives us a kind of Dow Jones average of the semantic state  
of the union.  Here are some of the most active words in tonight’s  
trading: energy 3, down 5, though oil, at 9 was up 6 from 2006, which  
is certainly good news for Mr. Bush’s backers in Texas. ... War, at  
11, up 9.  Terror, 22, up 2.  War on terror, up 4, while freedom, 3,  
was down 14 from 2006.  United States closed at 7, unchanged, but  
America, at 49, was down a record 23 points, though it was still  
higher than the president’s approval rating."

read more on The Web of Language

Best,

Dennis



Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron

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www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage

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