[Ads-l] Shuddering Crime

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

It sounds rather that the North Korean had in mind crime 
so horrible it makes you shudder. (Maybe he also knew some
German and was influenced by the word schauderhaft, which
means dreadful/ghastly/awful.)

Gerald Cohen



Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 19, 2020, at 6:47 AM, James Landau <00000c13e57d49b8-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Landau <jjjrlandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Shuddering Crime
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> On=C2=A0 Wed, 17 Jun 2020 12:39:10 Zone-0500=C2=A0=C2=A0Andy Bach <afbach at G=
> MAIL.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-na=
> tive speaker of English.=C2=A0 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-ma=
> de 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 t=
> hat a "fect" was a manufacturing error and therefore "to defect" meant to f=
> ix said error.
> At the risk of being fectless, one may refect that there was a political co=
> ntext to "DO NOT DEFECT".=C2=A0 Perhaps a squad of Chinese bicycle factory =
> workers made their escape to freedom by pedaling their bikes.
> On=C2=A0 Thu, 18 Jun 2020 16:52:25 Zone+0800=C2=A0=C2=A0Laichar <laichar1 at Y=
> AHOO.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 ha=
> s a philosophy of "the fects don't matter".
> 
> James Landau
> jjjrlandau at netscape.com
> 
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