Category Archives: politics

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Comma Kameleon

Merrill Perlman* has a nice piece in the Columbia Journalism Review** about a supposed gaffe Joe Biden made earlier this year during the primaries, when he was quoted as saying “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

That quote may be missing a comma. Perlman doesn’t delve in the politics of it, or try to plumb Biden’s intentions, and I won’t either. But she goes into some detail about restrictive vs. nonrestrictive clauses, and how something as small as a single comma can significantly change meaning, and have broad-reaching repercussions. If you care about the power of language and punctuation**, it’s worth reading.

* Whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak about copy editing last month. Great talk.
** Where I worked for a while in the late nineties.
*** And I know you do.

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Capitol Words

Capitol Words, a project of the Sunlight Foundation, is an amusing and nuance-free look at what our elected representatives are bloviating about at any given moment.

It might be better named “Capitol Word,” because that’s all it actually provides: the single word most frequently used by the U.S. Congress on any given day, determined by having a computer plow through the text of the Congressional Record. It goes back to January 2000, and they even have an API.

Thanks to Derek for the link.

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Andreessen on Obama

I try to avoid talking about politics on both Wordie and Errata, with mixed results. Likewise I try to stay on the topic of language and words, or at least in the ballpark.

But Marc Andreessen’s latest post is just too interesting not to pass on. So to paraphrase Leslie Gore, it’s my blog, and I’ll repost Andreessen if I want to.

In early 2007 Andreessen spent 90 minutes talking privately with Obama, before the media frenzy made that impossible for normal people (not that Andreessen is all that normal). He writes eloquently about the very positive impression Obama made on him, and about how Obama comes across in an unguarded setting. It’s an enlightening post, and will have a particularly strong impact on Andreessen’s post-Boomer cohort.

Despite the fact that Andreessen apparently contributed to Mitt Romney’s campaign (wtf?), I’m going to take a flier. You heard it here first: Obama/Andreessen ’08.

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Donald, I’m Sorry

I just checked a rarely-used account of mine, and read for the first time an email from Keith M. Urbahn, an aide to Donald Rumsfeld. He sent an audio file of the speech I mocked Rumsfeld for last month.

I stand by some of my mockery–comparing email and talk radio is silly–but Rumsfeld does not say “pods,” as quoted in Sharon Weinberger’s original post, which I in turn quoted. He clearly says “blogs,” which makes a lot more sense. I should have hunted down the original audio sooner. Weinberger, too, has updated her post with the correction.

Enough time has passed that I figured this merited a new post, in addition to updating the original. This is a blog about words, so I should try to get them right, and correct myself when I don’t. I apologize for the error.

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Donald Rumsfeld: "Pods are there"

UPDATE, 2/21/08: I was sent the audio of this speech, and Rumsfeld does not say “pods,” he clearly says “blogs.” My apology for the error. The point about lumping email and talk radio still stands.

After lying low for a while America’s premier linguist is back. Here he is, as quoted by Sharon Weinberger of Wired’s defense blog, Danger Room, speaking at a conference on network centric warfare:

“There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, pods are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there.”

Yes, the pods! Seed pods, perhaps. Connected by a series of tubes, no doubt. Lumping talk radio together with email, all I can think of that unites these things is that they transmit words, and require electricity. By that measure we might as well throw in intercoms and bullhorns. All of this makes more sense when you remember it’s coming from a 75 year old man who apparently doesn’t have an email address.

The quote is part of a talk in which Rumsfeld proposes a successor to the U.S. Information Agency (now part of the State Department) and the ill-fated (and ominously named) Office of Strategic Influence. The full Wired post is worth reading.

This one is making the rounds; perhaps my favorite commentary so far is by Spencer Ackerman of the recently-launched Washington Independent.