"interrogate the question"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Jonathan is as right as language allows in this case.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>

Date:         Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:42:10
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] "interrogate the question"


"Interrogate" has been a favorite word among postmodern theorists for nearly
thirty years.  It's what the Gestapo and the KGB were famous for, so
naturally it appeals to powerless deconstructionists.

I think Jerry's interpretation is right in this case, but that assumes that
the writer actually had a grip on what s/he was trying to say - an
assumption that Derrida roundly rejected. The law of the "infinite play of
signs" says that whatever you think was meant is certainly wrong, or at
least incomplete to the point of meaninglessness.

And remember, language speaks you, not vice versa.

Now don't you feel foolish?

JL


On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 8:45 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "interrogate the question"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 6/18/2009 07:51 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
> >Looks like a mistaken substituting of "investigate" for
> >"interrogate."  And here "question" = "issue."
>
> I'd accept this explanation (excuse?) more readily if I hadn't been
> coming across "interrogate" in (perhaps post-modernist or
> deconstructivist?)* historical studies not infrequently recently.  I
> don't, unfortunately, remember if those other instances are as
> lacking in graceful expression as this one.
>
> *No one, of course, can answer this question.  "Any effort to explain
> deconstruction is therefore doomed according to the theory
> itself.  Any effort to say anything ["anything" italicized], in fact,
> must go astray."  (Written by Steven Lynn, in _Texts and Contexts:
> Writing About Literature with Critical Theory_.)
>
> >
> >Gerald Cohen
> >
> >________________________________
> >
> >  Message from Joel S. Berson, Thu 6/18/2009 6:23 PM
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: "interrogate the question"
> >
> >
> >Is there something wrong with the following?  And how might one say
> >it in jargon-free, simple English?
> >
> >"That tradition may ...be considered in terms of five overlapping
> >concerns: ... [one being] interrogating the question of black
> >nationalism and colonization".
> >
> >In the OED, I see two possibilities --
> >
> >"{dag}2. To ask about (something). Obs. rare.", most recent citation
> >"1698 FRYER Acc. E. India & P. 132 Interrogating the State of Europe,
> >the Government, Policy, and Learning."
> >
> >"3.b. With question quoted", e.g. "1824 L. MURRAY Eng. Gram. (ed. 5)
> >I. 420 We may answer, by interrogating on our part; Do not those same
> >poor peasants use the Lever and the Wedge?"
> >
> >But in both these forms, one doesn't interrogate a question, one
> >interrogates (about) the subject of the question.  And my instance
> >additionally doesn't fit 3.b. because it doesn't state (ask) the
> >question, it merely gives the question (issue) a title.
> >
> >Joel
> >
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>
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