X marrying Y <> Y marrying X?

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:28 AM -0400 9/11/07, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On 9/11/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>  At 2:44 PM +0000 9/11/07, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
>>  >One would think this would have applied to sodomy laws as well, but
>>  >I know of at least 2 cases of consentual sex in which the man was
>>  >found guilty and the woman was not.
>>
>>  But as President Clinton taught us, "have sex with"--in at least one
>>  sodomy-relevant context--is not a symmetric predicate even if "marry"
>>  is.  After all, he explained, Monica Lewinsky had sex with him, but
>>  not vice versa.
>
>Was that really how it all went down (so to speak)? My recollection
>was that both parties tried to claim that the relevant acts didn't
>constitute "having sex", so there was no asymmetry. Let's go to the
>tape...

I wasn't thinking of that particular tape.  I was recalling testimony
by Clinton, not Lewinsky, to which N. Y. Times op-ed columnist
Maureen Dowd was referring in her column of 9/16/98:

The president admits trying to mislead Paula Jones' lawyers, but
denies lying under oath. He admits Monica had sex with him, but
denies he had sex with Monica. He denies that oral sex (the second
word of which is sex) is sex.

I forget (or rather "have no recollection of") the occasions on which
these various admissions and denials took place.

LH


>-----
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/10/03/archive/main19029.shtml
>
>LEWINSKY: We didn't have sex, Linda.
>
>TRIPP: Well, what do you call it?
>
>LEWINSKY: We fooled around.
>
>TRIPP: Oh.
>
>LEWINSKY: Not sex.
>
>TRIPP: Oh, I don't know. I think if you go to if you go to orgasm,
>that's having sex.
>
>LEWINSKY: No, it's not.
>
>TRIPP: Yes it is.
>
>LEWINSKY: No it's not. It's
>
>TRIPP: It's not having
>
>LEWINSKY: Having sex is having intercourse.
>
>TRIPP: Oh, you've been around him too long. That's his
>
>LEWINSKY: Nuh-uh.
>
>TRIPP: rationale.
>
>LEWINSKY: That's well, that's my then I've had sex with a lot more people.
>
>TRIPP: Oh? (Laughing).
>
>LEWINSKY: Having sex is having intercourse. That's how most people would
>
>TRIPP: Oh, so (REDACTED) jobs and all of that don't count?
>
>LEWINSKY: They don't count.
>
>TRIPP: Oh? Well, see? You have to inform me
>
>LEWINSKY: Those are guys that you just fool around with.
>
>... TRIPP: You mean it's less personal to give a (REDACTED) job than
>to have intercourse?
>
>LEWINSKY: No, not necessarily. Sometimes. It depends.
>
>TRIPP: I guess it depends.
>
>LEWINSKY: It really depends.
>
>TRIPP: Yeah, I'm getting an education late in life.
>-----
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org