[Ads-l] Shuddering Crime

[James Landau]

On  Wed, 17 Jun 2020 12:39:10 Zone-0500  Andy Bach <afbach at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
<quote>
>From the North Korea spokesperson: " [the destruction of the liaison
office was a] reflection of the zeal of our enraged people to punish
human scum who challenged the noblest dignity and prestige of our
country and those who sheltered the scum, perpetrators of shuddering
crime."
<end quote>
My first impression was that "shuddering" was due to a malaprop by a non-native speaker of English.  Perhaps s/he meant "shuttering" referring to the closing (destruction) of the liaison office.
A similar misuse of English appeared on the shipping carton of a Chinese-made Huffy bicycle: "DO NOT DEFECT" with additional wording that defecting of the bicycle should only be done by a bicycle repair shop.
This one is almost logical: the writer, by analog with bug/debug, thought that a "fect" was a manufacturing error and therefore "to defect" meant to fix said error.
At the risk of being fectless, one may refect that there was a political context to "DO NOT DEFECT".  Perhaps a squad of Chinese bicycle factory workers made their escape to freedom by pedaling their bikes.
On  Thu, 18 Jun 2020 16:52:25 Zone+0800  Laichar <laichar1 at YAHOO.COM> wrote re "riot porn; bothsidesism":
<quote>
Chinese state media has been caught using 2012 footage in a smearing
documentary about the recent HK protests and referencing a non-existent
"2015 protest".
<end quote>
In other words, Chinese state media has been pedaling disinformation and has a philosophy of "the fects don't matter".

James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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