Who Is IOZ?: The First Person's Possessive

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Stiftung Leo Strauss delivers a fine ballpeening to Obama's speech, but what was especially striking:

17 comments:

Anonymous said...: shut up, who cares.; 10:47 AM
John said...: The path is so well worn and smooth, I've grown accustomed. It will feel weird if/when they stop lying.; 11:34 AM
Anonymous said...: actually that was a very strong speech. his best moment as president.; 12:05 PM
Milo Busbecq said...: Don't be an idiot:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1488; 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: actually that was a very strong speech. his best moment as president. -- anon

I don't think I'd attach my name to that either.
-- sglover; 1:06 PM
Hockey Socks said...: I don't think I'd attach my name to that either.
-- sglover

Actually Crispin Sartwell put his name to that very quote.; 1:10 PM
rob payne said...: Exactly right. Obama is the center of the Obama universe.; 1:13 PM
IOZ said...: Not frequency, Milo, but salience.; 1:23 PM
NutellaonToast said...: bwahahahahahahahahah. oh. delicious, IOZ. I mean, not that it actually tastes good but it does have a very prominent taste.; 2:12 PM
John said...: Not salience, Señor, but "confirmation bias", also noted..

Until then, I'm going to assume that Stanley Fish has joined Terence Jeffrey and George F. Will in a classic display of confirmation bias: they feel that president Obama is arrogant and uppity, and so his uses of the first-person singular pronoun are striking and salient to them, in a way that previous presidents' pronouns were not. I freely admit, of course, that I have only a little more evidence for this opinion than they do for their views on Obama's egotism. emphasis mine; 3:31 PM
IOZ said...: Last sentence of your excerpt, John. Note it. I do not, you'll also note, claim that this is unique to Obama among presidents, any more than I would have claimed, as many on the putative left did, that malapropism was unique to Geedubs. Insane egoism isn't a trait of Obama, but a trait of American presidents. The point is that Obama, far from the outlier that both his ardent supporters and ardent opponents within the spectrum of ordinaryesque political opinion claim him to be, is depressingly ordinary among, uh, Commanders in Chief.; 3:53 PM
John said...: In truth I agree, sir. Sorry If I led you to believe otherwise. I, too, feel no different about this man than any of the previous. I just don't see any point on dwelling on him. He's the facade. What can we do about the scaffolding? And the people who build it?; 4:17 PM
John said...: Suddenly I feel like I got fished in..

Do we have to single out American presidents? I see it as a pretty generic trait of most anybody who wants to play the role, anywhere.

Alternate question: I missed it entirely, right?; 5:01 PM
Soj said...: I think "English as a 19th Language" is my all-time favorite IOZ tag.; 11:10 PM
Anonymous said...: Do we have to single out American presidents?

Given that the we chafe under the yoke of the American Empyr, and the wide reach of same over our lives, focusing on its executioner-en-chef is justified, no?

Capt'n Obvious; 9:55 AM
Anonymous said...: it's like that nigger thinks he's president or something; 1:57 PM
John said...: nony@9:55

I'm more interested in the phenomenon, and patterns of behavior, and the most basic motivations behind them than the personalities and foibles of any particular individual. I'll leave that for the tabloid press.; 10:50 PM

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The First Person's Possessive

17 comments:

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