Sinister: B & S travelogue--tautologies and oxymorons

[Nick.Dastoor at xxx.uk]

I knew we could coax a top linguistics student into this:


> Here's another oxymoron that might be more interesting:
>
> "I am a lazy gett, she is as pure as the cold driven snow"
>
>but it depends on an interpretation of 'driven' as driven through, or
>maybe driven away, as an outcast?  This is iffy and probably has to do
>with my original mishearing of 'cold' as 'coal', i.e. perfect snow that
>has been blackened by human traffic.  A point in my favor: snow is such a
>cliched image for purity, he must have meant to use it in a new way.
>Otherwise, what does 'driven' have to do with purity, unless it's purity
>of the repressed or frigid sort, not innocence.

I don't see what you mean here, Youn.  Isn't 'cold driven snow' just a stock
phrase? It might sound odd, but I'm pretty sure lots of people use it.  It's
kind of poetic, as cliches go.  I always assumed it meant 'driven' in the sense
of a blizzard that 'drives' down hard.  But I have to say I was never quite
sure.

>But aren't tautologies supposed to be literally tautological?  Then it's
>contingent on either interpretation of 'or'.  But this isn't taking
>into account the meaning of 'could'.  It's a tautology with a wide scope
>reading for the modal, which is justified because 'either' follows it,
>unless you don't believe it's possible for anyone to be successful.  And
>say that we mean something is possible if it is at all possible.

Oh dear, I give up.  Would anyone with a a higher IQ than me like to join the
fray?

Incidentally, I am aware that this thread might strike some of you as wanky in
the extreme.  You may be right and you may be wrong.

Even more incidentally, my Exeter City tautology wasn't very good because they
could always draw.  Unless it was a cup match.  Yes, that's what I meant all
along.

So incidentally it hurts, the other day I was watching the Simpsons and found
Homer talking about monkey butlers.  Might this be the root of the gnomic
reference on back of the new album?  Or have I just led a sheltered life and
everyone else is talking about monkey butlers all the time?


N. xx


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