Nov 19, 2009
Silliness...
Geoffrey Nunberg's response.
OK guys, now you're just trying to find things to fight about. The word Shall? Come on. There are far worse things to worry about in this particular piece of legislation.
For instance, I've always found the word, "it," to be offensively neuter in implication. The health care bill has the word, "it", several thousand times. In fact, a lot of these so-controversial"shalls," have sinister "its" that fall directly before and after them.
This is truly a terrible thing, linguistically speaking.
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8 comments:
Sorry, Nosurfgirl, but I've got to call you on pulling this out of context. On its own, the counting of the word "shall" is benign and trivial at best, but that is not what the speaker was truly emphasizing. Rather, he was emphasizing the use of "shall," which denotes an absolute requirement even stronger than the word "will," in direct comparison to the use of "may," signifying the choice of the affected people to make their own decision.
In this case, I think he was dead on in pointing out that the bill mandates a great many things but does not mandate a comparable program for the very people ramming health care reform down our throats.
While I'm quite sure the reform will eventually be forced on me, that bitter pill would be much easier to swallow if I knew that the people pushing it on me were also bound by it. As it stands, however, it seems a good case of "good enough for you, but I wouldn't touch it personally."
No thanks.
Skywalker said the same thing... I pointed out to him that there are far better ways he could have made his argument. Counting the number of times the word, "shall" was used, regardless of context, is not the way. It's so dang silly. I'm sure the other side could find plenty of word counts to support their position, too. In fact, I bet everyone who wanted to could quote word counts...
Did you read that second article? Hilarious. I find it so silly that everyone is finding silly reasons to pick fights over this issue, when there are much bigger ones to focus on. Classic party-distracting tactics. I respect the opinion of those who believe this should not be a part of government. I feel that this ridiculous kind of argument only makes those who oppose the health care bill look bad.
Yeah, sorry, coming from a tech background it's pretty important if something is classified as "must," "shall," or "may." Strictly speaking, "shall," is only a recommendation and permits the person implementing the document to ignore the statement or command.
Is the "it" being used in place of "he or she"?
Pretty much just joking over the "it" factor. :)
Shall.
To me it's sort of like "thee" and "thou"... a word used in official documents to respect the document in question and lend it a professional/historical document-type air.
you are certainly NOt a normal woman, this blog proves it, and all the other iedeas you have, i am blogging to a stephanie de alger and she is a politcal science majopr beofore she had her kids and she loves sarah , the other sarah, you know palin....the i better not say in case tony reads this....he and so many in utah just do not want any health care...i guess tuff it out like i guy i knew frank crowther who's boy got a infection that went up his leg and into his groin and up his side to his neck and he went into his home made penecillin supply to try to fix the problem...
p,s. my wife does love PUPPIES...
oh and i did know
you in the preexistance, remember that big tower in kolob, by the pedestial near the radiant flowers over by the plaza
Thanks for this. I hope that everybody who watches the video also reads the Geoff Nunberg response.
I'm parched for Truth from the right. Some reasonable dialog would be so refreshing.
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