I DON'T THINK, DO YOU?

The inimitable Judith Manners was asked about a point of grammar:

DEAR MISS MANNERS ~ My wife, a high school English teacher who taught advanced composition courses to seniors before retiring, had a pet peeve about one very common usage by prominent speakers in every field and also highly respected authors. It is starting a sentence with "I don't think...." She insisted that her students use "I think" instead of "I don't think."

Her rationale was obvious. The latter implies that the writer doesn't think. I would like to have your opinion on this subject.

GENTLE READER ~ Miss Manners hates to contradict pedants, because she is one. But she does not think that your wife is right. And that is more polite than saying that she thinks your wife is wrong, which is no small reason for preferring it.

If the statement "I don't think" stood alone, it would mean what you wife says it does. But she admits that this is only the beginning of a sentence which then names what the person does not think ~ itself evidence of thought. [emphasis mine]

TWO-HEADED BEASTS

Recently spotted two-headed beasts, that is, expressions that can mean more than one thing, intentionally (like the first one) or not (like the second). They shift like optical illusions that show two different pictures as your eyes refocus.

Women Writing for (a) Change is a writing group for women. They always spell the name with parentheses around "a" so the name could also be "Women Writing for Change." I don't care for either version. The parentheses annoy me, and it's too long, but besides that, it's not unusual for women to write, as the name implies (for a change), generally or individually. Well, maybe it is for the individuals in the group, I wouldn't know. The other implied name, "Women Writing for Change," suggests, as does their web site, that they write in order to change things, which inevitably implies politics, which inevitably suggests grievance. They call themselves a "movement" on their web site too, and it sounds as if they engage (or indulge) in regular group therapy.

Dave DaBee sent me a list of insults that included: "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." ~ Moses Hadas. Other quotes from Hadas along the same lines: "I have read your book and much like it" (there's lots of stuff just like it) and "This book fills a much-needed gap" (it's the gap that's needed).

"I don't care about those people over there," said a woman who called into a radio talk program to complain about our war in Iraq. She didn't think all the American money and lives needed to be expended there. But there was a little ambiguity in her conversation with the host, who seemed to think "care about" meant be worried about. That's not what she meant, I don't think (see above). I think she meant she wasn't concerned about their getting democracy, she didn't care about their well-being.

SMUT

Some interesting verbal items from the book Smut by Gil Reavill. The word "smut" of course comes from the German and means dirt. What I didn't know is that the word "decency" comes from the Greek dekomai, meaning "I accept." Other meanings of that Greek root are given in www.dict.org, but this one is interesting. Reavill's point is that we don't have the choice not to accept indecencies anymore. The public arena isn't even suitable for children. Just the subject lines alone of pornographic spam are offensive, if you don't want to receive it. It's like having a flasher on your desktop several times a day. He also defines cynicism:

It's the belief that the worst of all possible aspects of something is also the most meaningful. "America is a brutish imperial power." Even if you believe that sentence to be true, is that the most salient point we can make about America and its place in the world? What about this country's historic contributions to thought, culture, civilization? Dismissed by the cynic.

Which leads me to...

NEWS

Style

Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham commented on the prevalence of "exclusive" interviews with people who are actually interviewed often. It can only mean that the interviewee is talking to only one person at a time.

"Thank you for flexing your power." Someone said this on TV. "Flex" means "bend." You can flex your muscles to demonstrate strength. But www.dict.org gives a similar example: "The victorious army flexes its invincibility." Sounds funny to me, though.

"Here's the thirdal point." Ken Mehlman really said this, I rewound it a couple of times to make sure. He'd been through the first and second points, and I think he had a brain glitch and mixed "third" with "final."

Substance

The news is just wearing me out lately. Here are some interesting places to wear yourself out:

The Other Iraq (Kurdistan)

Little Green Footballs

Christopher Hitchens

Someone compared the odious Hugo Chavez speech and the UN response to the Star Wars bar scene, though I would not characterize the comparison as "mildly xenophobic" as the Wikipedia article does. Let us remember that Chavez has outlawed criticism of the government in Venezuela. No one could do there what he did here. I don't think people are dying to break into Venezuela, as they are, literally, to get into the U.S. to the point that we need to build a wall. This system is pretty successful.

Notice that Americans are rioting and murdering in outrage over Chavez's insulting remarks, like some Muslims did over the Pope's speech ... oops, my mistake, Americans are not doing that. Well, anyway, it seems as if basic logic has been omitted from the madrass (Islamic school). Someone says religion and violence don't mix, so the response is to (1) be insulted and (2) get violent. They just need some basic logic, maybe start with algebra and syllogisms, and then move on to debate clubs...

Someone near and dear to me says he's now a "progressive," which implies a package of beliefs, I suppose (not necessarily allied with any Progressive Parties, past or present). It often means some variety of socialism, and an economic explanation of all human motivation and aspiration, and very often is anti-American, not just anti-this-administration, and anti-religion. Though my near and dear doesn't necessarily buy into all that. But "progressive" does not simply mean advocating progress, it means advocating political revolution more drastic than the gradual changes human beings naturally make.

All this leads me to Dante, although I did not actually read The Inferno, in which those who were disloyal were placed at the lowest circle of Hell, I suppose because Satan was disloyal. You can't wait till your country is perfect to be loyal to it.

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