Comments on: Democrats Not a Major Party

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 15:37:08 +0000

Craig,

“So the error in interpretation exemplifies the admission in his first sentence”

Exactly. You put it well. Rogers’ statement that “I didn’t intend to exemplify my first sentence quite so nicely” makes no sense because a person can’t exemplify a sentence. Your version makes sense because an error can exemplify an admission.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:50:10 +0000

I’m with Maximilian. A construction that ambiguous is an error because of the ambiguity, even though the right meaning can be extracted from it with sufficient effort and context.

But I’m also with Mike Melendez. Probably the person who wrote the sentence doesn’t really think it “matters” all that much, but finding markers and milestones is sort of a journalistic hobby, I think — it’s a way of making something to write about.

By: peg

peg — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:07:36 +0000

“It’s true this used to be a Protestant majority country with many Episcopalians in the lead”.

And the Episcopal church was said to be “the Republican Party at prayer”. How things do change. It reminds me of a line in the movie “White Christmas”, to the effect that it would be “impossible to find a Democrat in Vermont”.

By: Mike Melendez

Mike Melendez — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:44:28 +0000

@Michael,

He’s saying he made a mistake. And maybe being a bit satirical doing it.

I agree with some above. The quoted sentence is poorly constructed. Worse, why does it matter? It’s true this used to be a Protestant majority country with many Episcopalians in the lead. But the Episcopalians changed that themselves by attempting to pull themselves up by their bootstraps only to find their shoes were tied. Protestants remain a majority by count but no longer by power. Contrary to those who think there were 95 theocrats on the door at Wittenburg, religion has become less important in national politics.

All of which is my roundabout way of saying it’s about time we stop talking about meaningless “milestones”.

By: Craig Payne

Craig Payne — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:34:38 +0000

Dear Michael: He just means that he made an error, and his first sentence admits that he makes errors. So the error in interpretation exemplifies the admission in his first sentence.

Nonetheless, I agree with the others: The Huffington Post entry was poorly written.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 01:35:24 +0000

“Well, I didn’t intend to exemplify my first sentence quite so nicely”

I have no idea what even this sentence means. How does one “exemplify one’s first sentence”?

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 01:19:27 +0000

Well, there was the 1928 Democrat ticket. After all, Joseph T. Robinson’s religious affiliation is unknown in the land of Wikipedia after a rogue group of atheist scholars revised entry after entry to eliminate any reference to religion, even in cases where it might be relevant (such as if a Protestant public figure denounced anti-Catholic bigotry). Like the Taliban blowing up Buddhist heritage sites and American atheists removing steeples from depictions of city landscapes or the rewriting of 18th century Deism into one of an agnosticism unconcerned by natural law, such historical facts are a nuisance and should be targeted for elimination less they interfere with your progressive reeducation.

By: Maximilian

Maximilian — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:08:05 +0000

The sentence is ambiguous. We know how to read it correctly, because we know the facts, but if we didn’t, interpretations would probably fly in both directions.

By: Joe Z

Joe Z — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:23:53 +0000

That doesn’t really help things, Mr. Rogers. It should have been written as Fitzgerald suggests, where “no Protestant” is not the subject of the sentence. Once you have that as the subject it’s pretty hard to disambiguate and still be writing English.

By: peg

peg — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:13:52 +0000

It’s a poorly constructed sentence. It doesn’t mean what it seems to say.