From online source:
"Even if you meant “refute” or “repudiate” or “vomit” or any number of viable verbs available to us in your little “tweet,” the clarity of the “tweet” fails. As my old rhetoric professor would say, I don’t know if you’re “f’r it, or agin’ it.” The fact is: some want a mosque near Ground Zero and Palin, who identifies with “the heartland,” which, as I understand is middle America, apparently does not. The mosque will be used by New Yorkers who need to worship and we should leave it up to them to decide whether it’s appropriate or not. Even if I thought it mattered though, why on Earth would it stab “peaceful Muslims” in the heart to build a mosque near Ground Zero? The events of 9/11 were POLITICAL events, not RELIGIOUS events. It is unfortunate that the two are so easily confused."
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We should probably consider "refudiate" a faux-pas of sorts (and disregard Palin's justifications...). The mosque's another issue, political and ethical rather than linguistic or semantic (tho yes they are related at times).
ReplyDeleteAt times I have considered the placement of large churches (christian, catholic, muslim,mormon etc) a matter of consensus, but that's not how American business operates--so if First Church of Billy Bob Free-will Baptist wants to erect a massive xtian warehouse across your street on the meadow, they will (and do)--even if most of the FCOBBFWB congregation live miles away, and will be commuting to their new FCOBBFWB warehouse for Jeezuss.
Personally, I think proposals for large structures should be submitted to a popular vote (of local citizens, at least rational ones, within a few miles of the proposed sacred warehouse). But that's not how the free market works.
Lest we forget, churches also have tax-exempt status. Another talking point. Some founding fathers like Madison opposed the tax exempt status . But this is to drift far from language use. Really, Miss Palin sounds likes she's trying to accommodate NY muslims. Whether one agrees or not, that's not necessarily the best approach. Some might feel the mosque's inappropriate. That doesn't imply they are conservatives.
Yes. Matter of fact, if I am faced with the utterance:
ReplyDelete"pls refudiate"
I need to know the context. It relates to something she DELETED from Twitter. When she 're-wrote' her utterance, she used 'refute'. But she followed 'refute', as I recall, with 'plan'. Peaceful Muslims should 'refute' the plan.
Alas, she later claimed to have coined a verb, so that led me to consider her initial 'refudiate' more seriously -- since she claims she meant it.
I should revise the deleted Tweet.
But it went along the lines that peaceful Muslims had to, please, refudiate the mosque.
----- Surely it would be odd to ask them (nonexistent as they may be, peaceful muslims -- cfr. Pacific Ocean, another misnomer) to 'refute' a mosque.
"Repudiate" seems more on spot. But it was perhaps thought of (even subconsciously) as too strong. Plus, in a previous interview, she had used 'refudiate', too -- regarding a claim by Bush, or something. I should revise the original, or earlier, utterance.
It has been argued that someone may have advised her to quote Shakespeare or throw him into the bargain ("She wouldn't know Shakespeare coined", they did argue).
So, I submit that there is, at the end of the day, some intentional or more likely unintentional 'ambiguity' about the 'refudiate'.
In general, it was thought that it is not good manners to elicit responses like 'refudiation' in Twitter in the first place. We are talking terrorist attacks here, and these are very serious issues.
Those who followed her argument or 'argument' argued, as in a 'reductio ad absurdum' that one may just as well refudiate Christian temples in Vietnam.
---- I would be interested to learn more about this plan. If Palin thinks peaceful Muslims should refudiate it, it must be some horrid thing.
------- It was observed that it would NOT be a mosque, but a Community Centre, which would have (or 'Center', as Americans spell it) which would have a mosque AND a gym as part of the facilities -- and a bathroom, I expect.
Perhaps a bar, too. It's not like I'm thinking of attending it.
------
The point about hearts being stabbed sounds rhetorical to me. Heartland and heart-stubbing is possibly alliterative.
In any case, politics and rhetorics usually mix, as when Obama coined 'corpse-man'.