Reversed "avowal"

[Dan Goncharoff]

So the whole thread was because a headline writer made a mistake by
omitting a negative?
DanG



On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Reversed "avowal"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8/17/2011 09:12 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>>I am finding this thread very confusing. When Nixon said, "I am not a
>>crook", was that an avowal?
>
> Yes.  But I would be very confused if I saw a headline that said
> "Nixon avows crooking", or "Letter counters crooking avowal from
> Nixon".  (And not because it said "crooking".)
>
> Joel
>
>
>>Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>On Aug 17, 2011, at 7:52 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: Reversed "avowal"
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > At 8/17/2011 07:13 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>> >> This is the headline of the story at the upper left corner of
>> the front page
>> >> of today's Times, laid out thus:
>> >> Letter counters
>> >> hacking avowals
>> >> from News Corp
>> >>
>> >> I read it several times before I could interpret it otherwise than "People
>> >> who count letters have hacked avowals issued by the News Corp."
>> >> ...
>> >> Those of you who see the Times only on-line (and aren't simple-minded)
>> >> weren't misled.
>> >
>> > I was misled, but in a different way (see my original post).  I do
>> > read the Times on paper, but "fortunately" the headline only seeped
>> > through to my consciousness on the continuation page, where it's all
>> > on one line.
>> >
>> > Joel
>> >
>> >
>> >> GAT
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Headline, NYTimes, Aug.17, page 1, col. 1, and repeated inside:
>> >>>
>> >>> "Letter counters hacking avowals from News Corp."
>> >>>
>> >>> The letter was written by Clive Goodman, un-rehired former royal
>> >>> correspondent for the News of the World, who is disputing claims by
>> >>> various News Corp. executives and editors that they knew nothing.
>> >>>
>> >>> This "avowal" is certainly not an "I do" (or "I did") hacking -- the
>> >>> OED definition is "An act of avowing; acknowledgement, declaration;
>> >>> unconstrained admission or confession" -- but rather a denial of
>> >>> hacking.  (They certainly did not admit or confess; even "hacking
>> >>> *declaration*" would tend towards the incorrect meaning.)  It is
>> >>> perhaps their avowal that they knew nothing .  Still,
>> >>>
>> >>> "Letter counters hacking denials from News Corp."
>> >>>
>> >>> would have been much realer.
>> >>>
>> >>> Joel
>> >>>
>> >>> ------------------------------**------------------------------
>> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> George A. Thompson
>> >> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
>> Northwestern Univ.
>> >> Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>> >>
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>> >
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