radio

[Joel S. Berson]

I wonder if the explanation isn't even simpler -- Victor's
transcription  from the audio has an exclamation point.  Suppose
instead a question mark.  Perhaps hard to differentiate the terminal
inflection when the speaker is delivering an "angry tirade".

Joel

At 2/6/2011 10:04 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 3:02 AM -0500 2/6/11, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>
>>Somewhat later--likely on a Hannity re-broadcast--two people were
>>"debating" the relative merits of Islamic law. After one speaker
>>suggested that his opponent was "angry", the other produced an angry
>>tirade in response. "Don't you dare to diff... Don't you differentiate
>>between anger and passion! I'm passionate about things that I am talking
>>about!" Notwithstanding the tautology in the last sentence, the one
>>before it contains an interesting use of "differentiate" that means
>>exactly the opposite of what it normally means. [A considerable period
>>of time passed since I heard the clip before
>>I committed it to writing, so it may vary slightly in the false start
>>and in the last bit, but the middle sentence is reported accurately.
>>There was a false start and the last bit is substantially accurate, but
>>I can't vouch for the exactness of those parts of the statement.]
>At first blush, this is reminiscent of "arguing/quibbling over
>semantics", where the meaning of semantics is something like 'stuff
>that doesn't really affect the meaning'. But on closer examination I
>think this is a one-off involving the frequent (and frequently
>discussed) problem with losing track of one's negations, in this
>leading to hyponegation rather than hypernegation.  The speaker
>probably intended "Don't you (dare) not differentiate between anger
>and passion".  Crucially, "differentiate" is a negative in the
>relevant sense, which increases the processing difficulty.
>
>LH
>
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