Wednesday, April 5, 2017

"I Leaked Nothing to Nobody...."

“I leaked nothing to nobody….

So said Susan Rice, formerly head of the National Security Council.

Evidently Rice is syntactically challenged. She should have said:

I did not leak anything to anybody….

By mangling the syntax Rice allowed herself to say:

“I leaked….”

She should have added… but not in the way you think.

4 comments:

  1. Rice was just quoting the famous South Chicago street lawyer, Dindu Nuffin, Esq.

    https://ronfccc.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/just-because-you-did-it-doesnt-mean-youre-guilty-greensboro-nc-wilmingtoncraigslistorgrnr4827485121html.jpg?w=537&h=326

    Lighten up. :-)

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  2. This would be more interesting if Rice did not have a history of not being conversant with the truth. The use of the race and sex card denotes that Rice does have a problem and it follows that Valerie Jarrett might be in the "wings" along with "plausible deniability" Obama. Besides the point that Susan Rice is NO Condi Rice. Far too many trolls out today to not believe that the democrats don't know they have a problem.
    The iron rule of politic here is that the louder the democrats scream, name call and try to deflect the more guilt is involved.
    When the left start with a "republican" said this or that the more they are obfuscating. Remember the election was about establishment agains't the non establishment. Not republican agains't democrat. It is still the "Deep State" agains't the citizens of this country. Lord Acton applies. https://acton.org/research/lord-acton-quote-archive
    I have to laugh at the Washington Post. Some how we are supposed to believe the company paper of the federal government.

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  3. I really, really believe Susan Rice this time.

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  4. I've heard suggestions that double-negatives are used to express a stronger statement, although this isn't a simple double negative.

    Here's another blog that looks at it too.

    https://bltnotjustasandwich.com/2017/04/04/getting-susan-rices-language-right/
    ---
    At Language Log, linguist blogger Mark Liberman writes a quick post in which he starts in with a clip “[f]rom Susan Rice’s interview today with Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC.”

    The clip is to show what he describes merely as “an interesting example of emphatic multiple negation:”

    : "I leaked nothing to nobody, and never have and never would.

    Susan Rice’s language may be more fully described as translanguaging. Translanguaging is the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages.
    ...
    In this very context, she is speaking political standard American English and personal person-centered African American English.
    ---

    Anyway, such a plea of innocence only helps in the sense if a single "leak" is found, however small, that would challenge her assertion "never", and that would make her a liar, and would make her look more guilty in other cases that can't be proved either way.

    I also heard a quote like "The sin isn't in what you did wrong, but what you do to cover up what you did wrong."

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