Tag: Linguistics

My Words Were Taken Out of Context – Falwell Example

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians…the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, “You helped this happen.”
— Jerry Falwell, September 13th, on The 700 Club about last week’s terrorist attacks

I sincerely regret that comments I made…were taken out of their context.
—Jerry Falwell, September 14

Nine Possible Contexts:
1. “…NOT.”

2. “You know, I’m really high right now, so this may not make any sense, but…”

3. “Keeping in mind that today is Opposites Day, I emphasize that…”

4. “My son showed me this cool thing on Alta Vista, where you type something in English and then have the computer translate it into French and then into Spanish and then into German and then back to English—it’s kinda like ‘Telephone,’ you know?—and something that made sense at the beginning will come out sounding like…”

5. “If an infinite number of monkeys typed on an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would write…”

6. “I want to take a break from the grim events of this week, and salute the brave people who’ve spent years making America a better and more tolerant place. Who’s done this, who’s helped this happen? Well, I’ll tell you: …”

7. “An insane man off camera is pointing a gun at my head and forcing me to read this statement. Quote,…”

8. “Please join me in praying that, in the wake of this horrific tragedy, Christ’s message of peace will prevail, our entire country can unite in compassion, not aggression, and that no misguided person will state…”

9. “I truly believe that if Osama bin Laden had been born in America, right now he’d be saying…”

What Falwell Really Meant
Michael Gerber And Jonathan Schwarz
SEPTEMBER 18, 2001
Village Voice

Built Houses for a Month

One common way to gauge whether an English verb phrase is telic is to see whether such a phrase as in an hour, in the sense of “within an hour”, (known as a time-frame adverbial) can be applied to it. Conversely, a common way to gauge whether the phrase is atelic is to see whether such a phrase as for an hour (a time-span adverbial) can be applied to it.[2][3][4][5] This can be called the time-span/time-frame test. According to this test, the verb phrase built a house is telic, whereas the minimally different built houses is atelic:
Fine: “John built a house in a month.”
Bad: *”John built a house for a month.”
→ built a house is telic
Bad: *”John built houses in a month.”
Fine: “John built houses for a month.”
→ built houses is atelic

wikipedia