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#Post#: 2557--------------------------------------------------
Amphiboly
By: Piper Date: July 17, 2015, 11:35 am
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Amphiboly?!
Salamanders, frogs and newts? What is amphiboly?
With my love of language and writing, I got a few laughs out of
this article by Karl Keating, from Catholic Answers, though it
will probably make me even more obsessive about proofing
everything I write. ::) ;D Thought I'd share. Hope it gets a
few smiles from YOU, as well:
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[quote][font=times new roman]Language is a tricky thing. With
the wrong words or the wrong construction, you can seem to mean
things you don’t intend or can seem to intend things you don’t
mean. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble. Many Catholics
do, particularly when they write online.
At sites such as Facebook, many people have the impression that
stream-of-consciousness writing is a good thing. They don’t
re-read their words before they push the Send button. Not
infrequently, they end up committing the literary crime of
amphiboly.
That’s the use of an ambiguous word or sentence construction
that confuses the reader, either innocently or intentionally.
Let me give some non-religious examples.
At the conclusion of a musical performance, Calvin Coolidge was
asked, “What do you think about the singer’s execution?” He
replied: “I’m all for it.” That may not have been the kind of
answer the inquirer was seeking, but it was the kind his
imprecise wording deserved.
Similarly with a job applicant, who got a letter of
recommendation from his former employer: “Anyone who can get
Carbuncle to work for him will be lucky indeed.” One hopes
Carbuncle didn’t show the letter to prospective employers. If he
did, he’s probably still looking for a job.
More famously, there was the case of Croesus, king of Lydia from
560–547 B.C. and renowned for his wealth. Before marching
against Persia, Croesus consulted the Delphic Oracle, which
assured him, with studied ambiguity, that war against Persia
would result in the fall of a great empire. That’s just what
happened, except that it was the empire of Croesus that fell.
(Croesus himself was captured and burned on a pyre by the
Persians, who were led by Cyrus the Great—who is mentioned
repeatedly in the Bible, so perhaps this example might count as
quasi-religious.)
As in great history, so in great literature. In Henry VI
Shakespeare provides this subtly unclear line: “The duke yet
lives that Henry shall depose.” Does this poetic phrasing mean
that Henry shall depose a duke who still lives or that there
still lives a duke who shall depose Henry? Read the play to find
out.
Sometimes ambiguous wording is used for personal gain. Years
ago, some people purchased a record album titled Best of the
Beatles, thinking it included the best songs of that group. It
didn’t. The title referred to the band’s original drummer, Pete
Best, and the album consisted of his songs.
More often, deliberately ambiguous wording is used humorously.
One of the most famous instances is from the movie Animal
Crackers. Groucho Marx speaks an ambiguous sentence and then
immediately follows up with a punchline: “One morning I shot an
elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never
know.”
Online and elsewhere, amphiboly usually is innocent and arises
from mangled sentence structure. My favorite comes from my own
family. My maternal grandfather was an immigrant, and his
English was imperfect. One day he was speaking to his daughter
Nell: “Throw me down the stairs, Nellie, my hat and coat.”
I already have alluded to what brings amphiboly to mind:
Facebook. Like many of you, I spend too much time on Facebook.
(Translation: “I spend too much time on Facebook” means “I spend
time on Facebook.” Any time spent on Facebook is too much, given
the other, constructive things I could be doing. I rationalize
by assuring myself that I engage in apostolic work when I go
online to battle the latest Catholic amphibolies and other
manglings of the faith.)
Although you occasionally see references to Thomas Aquinas on
Facebook, particularly in discussions among Catholics, you
seldom see anyone write as he wrote. He wrote with great
precision, and he wrote simply. He called his masterwork, the
Summa Theologiae, a book for “beginners”—and so it is, despite
its great length.
Aquinas was the epitome of precision. He made sure that he said
what he intended to say—nothing more, nothing less. He parsed
his arguments, breaking them into little pieces, looking at each
piece from multiple angles. When you read a page of Aquinas, you
know exactly what he means. It’s too bad that his good writing
habits haven’t found their way onto Facebook.
I find myself responding to many Facebook posts that rise to the
top of my news feed. It might be truer to say that I don’t so
much respond as intrude. Sometimes I inject myself into
discussions simply to clear up commenters’ imprecise language,
and then I depart. I find myself defending people who
unknowingly have committed amphibolies and who are being
skewered for it: other commenters think they are saying X when
they really meant to say Y.
Sometimes a single unclear sentence can result in dozens of
annoyed and annoying responses. The original commenter is taken
to the woodshed for having said something he didn’t say—or, at
least, didn’t intend to say—and gets little mercy from people
whose responses to him might be as unclear as his own phrasing.
They don’t like what he said or, at least, how he said it. They
don’t like his execution.
Or maybe they do.[/font][/quote]
#Post#: 2599--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Kerry Date: July 19, 2015, 1:56 pm
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Some comedy depends on this kind of confusion.
Gracie Allen: George, I'll let you in on a secret. I'm running
for president.
George Burns: You're running for president?
Allen: Yes.
Burns: Gracie, how long has this been going on?
Allen: Well, for 150 years, George Washington started it.
Burns: But in the entire history of the United States, there's
never been a woman president.
Allen: Yeah, isn't that exciting? I'll be the first one.
Here's a question with some vagueness in it. What becomes
shorter when you add two letters to it?
#Post#: 2602--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Piper Date: July 19, 2015, 2:36 pm
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The word 'short' becomes 'shorter' when we add two letters to
it. :)
#Post#: 2694--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Kerry Date: July 28, 2015, 5:09 am
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[quote author=Piper link=topic=298.msg2602#msg2602
date=1437334600]
The word 'short' becomes 'shorter' when we add two letters to
it. :)
[/quote]And also becomes longer at the same time. Go figure.
Here's a headline from Reuters that made me do a double take:
Boy Scouts of America lifts blanket ban on gay adult leaders
HTML http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/27/us-usa-boyscouts-idUSKCN0Q113220150727<br
/>
I wondered why would they have told gay adults they couldn't
have blankets? What if it got cold? Wouldn't that tempt them
to ask if they could cuddle with the straight boys?
#Post#: 2699--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Piper Date: July 28, 2015, 10:50 am
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Hehehe. :D
#Post#: 2700--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: bradley Date: July 28, 2015, 2:49 pm
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So the gay adult leaders were under the blanket together doing
something and someone took the blanket off exposing them huh?
:D
#Post#: 2703--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Kerry Date: July 29, 2015, 5:50 am
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[quote author=bradley link=topic=298.msg2700#msg2700
date=1438112958]
So the gay adult leaders were under the blanket together doing
something and someone took the blanket off exposing them huh?
:D
[/quote]So now they've banned lifting the blankets? LOL
#Post#: 2709--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Piper Date: July 29, 2015, 12:51 pm
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Eeeeeyuuuu. :P
#Post#: 2716--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Kerry Date: July 29, 2015, 6:47 pm
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#Post#: 2800--------------------------------------------------
Re: Amphiboly
By: Piper Date: August 5, 2015, 7:28 pm
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Oops, need to do that on the computer but am on my Kindle becuz
I'm lazy today. Wait a minute . . .
Okay, thought this was kinda 'cute':
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