Diane Sawyer hedging her bets

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> At 3/22/2011 07:31 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >Another reversal:
> >
> >We've discussed, as has Language Log at various intervals, the
> >problems in sorting out "can't underestimate" and its relatives.
> >Here's Diane Sawyer on tonight's episode of ABC World News Tonight on
> >the lead story:
> >
> >"It would be hard to imagine, or underestimate [pause]..., or
> >overestimate, what it must have been like" when those two American
> >airmen were forced to bail out and land in Libya.
>
> It wasn't a very long pause, however, and I thought it might equally
> well have been a tongue slip as a brain slip.

You can find it at 6:55 in the video here: http://abcn.ws/gWrjZT

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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