to parse

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/24/2012 08:10 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>"To explain in detail."
CNN asks a Republi
the hot new, fun new way to say "determine; understand exactly"
can spokesman whether Bain Capital is "something Mitt
>Romney needs to go through or parse through" for voters.

The various examples of parse in this chain seem
not unusual or nor wild extensions to me; they
all seem instances of "analyze" in some
manner.  Jon wrote initially "It's the hot new,
fun new way to say 'determine; understand
exactly'".  But it was also the old fun way, whichever old century one picks:

2. trans. In extended use: to examine or analyse minutely.
1788   F. Grose Rules Caricaturas 14   When you
wish to draw a face from recollection you must
well commit it to memory, by parsing it in your
mind (as schoolboys term it) by naming the
contour and different species of features of which it is constructed.
...
1962   P. Tompkins Spy in Rome xxxi. 307   Franco
spoke Italian with a slightly foreign (or
aristocratic) accent­depending on which way the listener chose to parse it.
2001   Newsweek 17 Dec. 60/1   Science has parsed
nearly every move of every Olympic event and
figured out what athletes must do to bring back the gold.

(Garson noted this sense earlier, and gave examples from 1996 and 2002.)

"Analyze" is not far from "try to understand".  And even in

"1999 David D. Perlmutter _Visions of War_ (N.Y.: St. Martin's)  53: The two
sides [in a prehistoric rock painting of warriors] are parsed so that there
is no doubt that they are in opposition."

which Jon called "app. = "arrange; dispose in
pattern", "arrange" is not far from "analyze",
even though it is visual rather than verbal.

"Parse fact from fiction" seems to arise
naturally from the necessity to analyze
sentences, and just moves from written to spoken.

Joel

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