Oh Dubya!

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FizzingWhizzbees

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No, it's not a typo, it wasn't misreported: Dubya thinks slaves went to America because of America's belief in freedom. :rolleyes:

It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America.

(Quoted from Dubya's remarks in Senegal earlier in the week.)
 
:huh: Perhaps he means to say that their belief in freedom changed america. Grammar 101 would be in order.
 
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Think about it this way:

"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because they helped change America because of their steadfast (sic) and their religion and their belief in freedom."

I think he meant that the slaves eventually changed America because of their beliefs, and not that they voluntarily left Africa for them. Dubya's not *that* dumb.










...is he?
 
So he actually wanted to say something along the lines of "People who were brought to America as slaves changed America because of their belief in freedom and religion."

See, that would make sense and I'm just not used to hearing sense from Dubya. :wink:
 
sulawesigirl4 said:
:huh: Perhaps he means to say that their belief in freedom changed america. Grammar 101 would be in order.

Actually, Grammar 101 would be in order for the journalist who wrote the statement down, not for Bush.

The statement was written:


"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."

It should have been written thusly:

"It's very interesting; when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast (*word left out?) and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."

So really, the only 2 things wrong are:

1)The absence of a semi-colon
2)Leaving out a word - steadfast "what"?

However, because of the placement of the commas, it could never be taken to mean that "Dubya thinks slaves went to America because of America's belief in freedom". The comma after the word "America" and before "because" serves to separate the 2 thoughts. And if that comma was not there, it would still not have anything to do with "America's belief in freedom", but rather the slaves' beliefs in freedom, and that's a ridiculous idea that no one would have. In fact, in order for that to be grammatically correct (as far as writing is concerned), the last comment would have to be dropped. To illustrate that point, here is the statment again, without the last 2 commas, but with the semi-colon, which should have been there:

It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom helped change America.

The grammar lesson is now over. Please send your payments promptly, so I can pay for my membership to the Grand Old Party.
 
OK, the journalist screwed up. Why does that not surprise me? No offense to journalists per se but some of them sure are dense.
 
I think that "left Africa" was poor word choice. Forcibly taken seems better, but oh well.
 
80sU2isBest said:


Actually, Grammar 101 would be in order for the journalist who wrote the statement down, not for Bush.

The statement was written:


"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."

It should have been written thusly:

"It's very interesting; when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast (*word left out?) and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."

So really, the only 2 things wrong are:

1)The absence of a semi-colon
2)Leaving out a word - steadfast "what"?

However, because of the placement of the commas, it could never be taken to mean that "Dubya thinks slaves went to America because of America's belief in freedom". The comma after the word "America" and before "because" serves to separate the 2 thoughts. And if that comma was not there, it would still not have anything to do with "America's belief in freedom", but rather the slaves' beliefs in freedom, and that's a ridiculous idea that no one would have. In fact, in order for that to be grammatically correct (as far as writing is concerned), the last comment would have to be dropped. To illustrate that point, here is the statment again, without the last 2 commas, but with the semi-colon, which should have been there:

It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom helped change America.

The grammar lesson is now over. Please send your payments promptly, so I can pay for my membership to the Grand Old Party.


The misLeader of the Free World should not need an interpreter from Texas? to explain to the rest of the English speaking world what he means.
 
Sorry, I'm with Dubya on this one. Even if he sort of mispronounced the sentence (and I'm not even sure he did), it's a mistake that could happen to anyone. He might have misread it or the journalist might have written it down inaccurately, but I think the intent behind the statement came across.
 
For what it's worth, it's a quote from the White House website so I'm assuming it was a person who works for them who transcribed the quote incorrectly and not a journalist. :)
 
deep said:

The misLeader of the Free World should not need an interpreter from Texas? to explain to the rest of the English speaking world what he means.

I wasn't interpreting what Dubya said. I think it needs no interpretation. I was correcting the writer's grammar.
 
I don't necessarily think that quote was mistranscribed.

People don't speak English the same way they write English. Bush probably said "it's very interesting when you think about it (pause) the slaves who left here to go to America (pause) because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America".

99.9% of Slate's Bushisms of the day are similar to this quote--spoken speech, when transcribed literally, can often lead to absurdity.
 
speedracer said:
I don't necessarily think that quote was mistranscribed.

People don't speak English the same way they write English. Bush probably said "it's very interesting when you think about it (pause) the slaves who left here to go to America (pause) because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America".

99.9% of Slate's Bushisms of the day are similar to this quote--spoken speech, when transcribed literally, can often lead to absurdity.

All the coke and booze Dubya enjoyed before being "born again"
has rotted what brain he had. It's no surprise he can't say a
single coherent sentence.

:wave: :wave: :wave:
 
Oh man, I get tired of hearing about the "coke". Fact is that while Bush admitted to having been an alcoholic and having done marijuana in the past, he never admitted to using cocaine, nor has any viable source ever accused him of that.
 
speedracer said:
I don't necessarily think that quote was mistranscribed.

People don't speak English the same way they write English. Bush probably said "it's very interesting when you think about it (pause) the slaves who left here to go to America (pause) because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America".

99.9% of Slate's Bushisms of the day are similar to this quote--spoken speech, when transcribed literally, can often lead to absurdity.

I'd completely buy this interpretation of what happened. Bush tends to have a lot of pauses in his oral presentation.

I dislike journalists more than Bush, so excuse me if I'm biased.
 
80sU2isBest said:
Oh man, I get tired of hearing about the "coke". Fact is that while Bush admitted to having been an alcoholic and having done marijuana in the past, he never admitted to using cocaine, nor has any viable source ever accused him of that.


ok.....he must naturally be an airhead then.

:wave: :wave:
 
:tsk:
semantics
the journo may have been reflecting bush's pauses in his grammatical formatting but it is more likely the journo inappropriately formatted the grammar of the president.
 
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