word of the year?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Akin presumably said "legitimate" rather than "forcible" (what I imagine he
meant) to distinguish it from "fake rape," when women claim falsely
that they've been raped just to get one of them government abortions, which
his tax dollars ain't a-goin' to pay for once we get that lawless Marxist
Obama out of the White House.



JL





On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: word of the year?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Not as catchy as Whoopi Goldberg's "rape rape" (in her description of what
> Roman Polanski didn't commit with the 14-year-old girl).
>
> LH
>
> On Aug 20, 2012, at 10:23 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
> > On Aug 20, 2012, at 6:43 AM, David Barnhart wrote:
> >
> >> What was going through the speaker's mind.  Legitimate rape!?!?
> >>
> >> From: Hollis Barnhart [mailto:hbarnhart at highlands.com]
> >> Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 8:35 AM
> >> To: David Barnhart
> >> Subject: word of the year?
> >>
> >> worst euphemism maybe?  legitimate rape:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/legitimate-rape-and-todd-akins-myths/2012/08/20/f8c048b4-ea76-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_blog.html
> >
> > my guess is that he was (mentally) contrasting forcible rape ("real
> rape", "legitimate rape") with statutory rape.  the legal presumption is
> that sex with a minor cannot by definition be consensual and therefore must
> have been coerced, even if not forcible -- so is rape (labeled in various
> ways in different jurisdictions, but known informally as "statutory rape").
>  but people recognize that the legal minor in these cases often enters
> willingly into the sexual relations (and most people are uncomfortable with
> the idea that a specific date makes the difference between rape and
> consensual sex).
> >
> > if that's what Akin meant, then of course he should have said so, rather
> than merely saying he mis-spoke (if he mis-spoke, what did he *intend* to
> say instead?).  but then he would be exposing an attitude that might well
> be unpopular with a significant portion of the electorate.
> >
> > the other problem with his original statement is his expressed belief
> that forcible rape doesn't make women pregnant, because their bodies --
> somehow, magically --prevent conception.  he is simply wrong about that as
> a matter of science, and it's a really ugly idea.  the only way for Akin to
> fix that would be for him to admit that he was wrong ("mis-speaking"
> doesn't begin to cover the case), but i fear he's convinced of the truth of
> this myth, though he realizes that it would be impolitic to admit that.  so
> his follow-up statement disregards the issue entirely, in favor of
> apparently supportive platitudes.
> >
> > really, a remarkable performance.
> >
> > arnold
> >
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