Monday, October 20, 2008

McCain Mangles English Again

I wrote about this before. John McCain mangles English almost as much as George Bush. On two occasions he's used the nonexistent word "epitat" instead of "epithet", and now a report from the Boston Globe has him saying "predicate" instead of "precedent".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sarah Palin has said 'nucular' several times, but what really got me was when she said 'pundint'.

Maragon said...

Dear Mr. Shallit,

This is woefully off topic, so feel free not to post it. I would have emailed, but I didn't want to clog up your university address.

Allow me to start my stating that I am an admirer(and occasionally understander) of your work. I've read you on the Panda's Thumb and also about you in books and reports regarding the Dover Trial.

I stumbled across your blog (again) today when I was looking up a man named Hendrik van der Breggen, whom you wrote a response to in 'The Record', regarding his misguided views about the scientific validity of intelligent design. Until reading that letter of yours today I had completely forgot that you lived in the KW area - and my fiance and I just moved here in May.

Aside from wanting to compliment you, I was wondering if you knew of any local skeptic or atheist clubs or discussion groups. I was a part of one at the University of Ottawa, and have been sorely lacking in intelligent discussion(and surrounded by theists!) since moving to the KW area. If you had any recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it(If you choose not to publish my comment, my email is available in my blogger profile).

Regardless, thank you for representing rational Canadians on the national scene!

Jeffrey Shallit said...

There are a couple of local groups: SOFREE is run by Kathy Meidell (used to be the Kitchener-Waterloo Humanists); see
http://www.sofree.ca/

And the Atheists, Agnostics, Freethinkers of Waterloo:
http://uwaaf.clubs.feds.ca/ .

P. Z. Myers is speaking Guelph this weekend; maybe I'll see you there?