More on substituting

victor steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Sat Aug 6 16:24:25 UTC 2011


BTW, Hirschbein's "plain English" is no substitute for Churchill's
original. He simply failed to understand the quote that he based his
whole hyperventilating tirade on. In that context, what's a little
perversion of a common idiom!

VS-)

On 8/6/11, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> To show what I mean by "insane," here is the complete context:
>
> "[Winston Churchill said the following about the H-bomb and the policy
> of "mutually assured destruction":] 'By a process of sublime irony, [we]
> have reached a state where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and
> survival the twin brother of annihilation.'
>
> "Philosophers are a little touchy about language and logic:  eloquence
> is no substitute for dubious reasoning. In plain English, Churchill and the
> others are saying: _To reduce the risk of nuclear war, the risk must be
> increased_."

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