"he said, s/he said"

[Laurence Horn]

In the aftermath of Sunday's 60 Minutes profile of star pitcher Roger
Clemens and the playing of a secretly taped phone conversation
between the two principals, there have been scads of phone calls to
sports talk shows in response to the standoff between Clemens's
trainer Brian McNamee (who claims he injected his client with
steroids) and Clemens (who denies the allegations and claims he was
only injected with B-12).  There appears to be no direct third-party
evidence to support either position, just the testimony of the two
principals.  About half the time I hear callers and hosts refer to
this dispute as "he said, she said" (the standard form of the
expression) and about half the time as "he said, he said" (the
context-relevant form).  I don't know if either of them will
ultimately win out.  Is this an instance of the "Markedness vs.
Faithfulness" conundrum as Arnold describes it?

LH

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