Dorkhead

From "What's My Line Part 2," Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2.4:

XANDER: (reading about the Bugman assassin) OK, OK ... he can only be killed when he's in his disassembled state. Dis-assembled. That means when he's broken down into his little buggy parts.

CORDELIA: I know what it means, dorkhead.

From the President's press conference, May 31, 2005:

THE PRESIDENT: I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is.

So, for those keeping score at home -- Cordelia Chase: 1; George W. Bush: 0.

Comments

[coriolis]

Fred, the range and depth of your knowledge continues to astonish me. You're like the smarter, more articulate, little brother that I never had.

[eristick]

He's confusing disassemble with dissemble(a more obscure word.) And yet he can't come up with a synonym for "absurd."

[sigh]

I wish someone would break him down into his little buggy parts.

[j swift]

Every time this happens I am never sure whether he is just a clumsy speaker or he purposely does this to cultivate his, "I'm really not an elitist, fat-cat, corporate cocksucker" persona.

[Elvis]

He misspoke. Big deal. You all do it several times a day, I'm sure.

The difference is that you don't (I assume) have anyone recording your every utterance or tens of millions of people who hate you (I assume) and keep your mistakes alive in the public mind.

[Scott]

Every time this happens I am never sure whether he is just a clumsy speaker or he purposely does this to cultivate his, "I'm really not an elitist, fat-cat, corporate cocksucker" persona

I hear he was articulate and spoke in complete, grammatically correct sentences in his debate with Ann Richards to be Gov of TX.

[Anton Mates]

Every time this happens I am never sure whether he is just a clumsy speaker or he purposely does this to cultivate his, "I'm really not an elitist, fat-cat, corporate cocksucker" persona.

I think generally it's done to distract from the actual content of his words. In this case, he hopes the media will sit back and go "disassemble, ha ha ha"--and not notice that he just said you shouldn't bother talking to the people we detain when, y'know, investigating the conditions of their detention.

[bananie]

i'm sorry, but every time i hear or read bush's misuse of "disassemble", i think of the movie, short circuit, and giggle. the government-made killing robot--with heart!--knows full well the definition of "disassemble".

does anyone else think of ally sheedy and steve guttenburg (sp?) in this context?

[Elvis]

Huh... Dissemble was the dictionary.com word of the day on May 30, and the very next day he tried to use it. So good try! You'll get it next time, Mr. President!

link: http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2005/05/30.html

[bulbul]

Elvis: yes, he mispoke. So do I about ten times a day, so do you. Yet he does that so often and in such monstrous proportions that everyone with half a brain cannot help but wonder about his intelligence.

[jakester]

Wait, I'm confused. I can't tell if terrorists have been instructed to disassemble Tom DeLay?? This is a bad thing?

[Axis of Evel Knievel]

Dorkhead indeed. What would Poe think?

[Jessi Guilford]

He misspoke. Big deal. You all do it several times a day, I'm sure.

The difference is that you don't (I assume) have anyone recording your every utterance or tens of millions of people who hate you (I assume) and keep your mistakes alive in the public mind.

Well, um. But I was also smart enough to know that I wouldn't want a job where all my mistakes would be kept alive in the public mind.

For Chrissakes, he's the President. Public speaking is part of the job. Dealing with the press is part of the job. Speaking English is common enough in the country. It's not unfair to point out when he gets it wrong, particularly when he gets it so FREQUENTLY, DRASTICALLY, and AVOIDABLY wrong. It reflects badly on the rest of us too.

[Grotesqueticle]

But, the president's borderline-retarded mangling of the English language just shows that he's one of us!! That's why we voted for him.

[David C]

I like the fact that he defined it as well - you just know someone just told him what it means and he wanted to show off his shiny new word. Shame he got it wrong.

[Vanya]

Be careful Fred. Wolfram & Hart are probably watching you.

[Jeff G.]

The difference between your average mistake and speaking is that he then defined the word afterwards. If you're going to define the word, explaining what you're saying, then you get marked down. Just speaking a word wrong is one thing, but then emphasizing it is another.

[Constantine]

It's possible that any of us would have conflated "dissemble" with "disassemble." (And, strangely, echoing Elvis's point about dictionary.com, the day after it occurred, I speculated that Bush had a 'word-of-the-day' calendar that convinced him to 'try it out' when dissemble was the word of the day) However, here's the thing-- how many of us simultaneously slip up in language and act pedantic about it? Who mixes up a word by accident and then explains the definition of the original word? Bush did that (using the correct word) at one of his phony "town hall" meetings when he said, "We live in a litigous society-- that means we have a lot of lawsuits." Maybe Bush feels it's the job of his position in the "bully pulpit" to give people vocabulary lessons. The problem is that he's singularly unqualified to do so.

Oh, and, yes, I realize that by criticizing someone's use of language, it is almost inevitable that this post will have some grammatical or spelling error in it.

[wheat]

The bigger problem is that he, prior to using his shiny new word, defines the US as a country that never does any wrong and always pursues "in a transparent way" any allegation of wrongdoing. We are the promoters of liberty and freedom, therefore its absurd to suggest that we ever do anything that limits liberty and freedom. Most of the kids in my freshman English class could craft a better argument than that (or at least know that this one is weak). Then he takes the same circular approach with respect to the detainees: anyone we detain is, by definition, a liar--a person who hates America. Why should we take seriously the claims of (people we've already defined as) liars? Nothing to see here, people, move on. These AI investigators have just been duped by the terrorists. That's his "argument"!

[wheat]

And, yeah, that "its" should be an "it's". But my post isn't smacking on his grammar--it's smacking on what he thinks passes for logic.

[Bad Catholic]

Thank you, Fred, for totally making my day. Hee hee.

[Pere Ubu]

The problem is not a single mis-speaking, or even just the mangling of pronunciation in general. It's mispronunciation PLUS ingnorance PLUS a black-and-white view of the world PLUS lack of introspection PLUS an inability to ever, ever admit a mistake.

It's a whole buffet table of disqualifications to be President of the U.S.

[Jenn]

Perhaps Bush is just a fan of the style of Lemony Snickett (sp?) and his A Series of Unfortunate Events books? I have not read these books, but it is my understanding that the author will use an advanced vocabulary word and then provide the definition in a parenthetical. This, combined with a word-of-the day calendar oculd explain it all....

[Adam]

Yes, and Lemony Snicket always defines it more specifically in quite an interesting way. He always defines "what it means in that particular context", so he might define 'terror' as "the feeling one has when one is being approached by a horde of pirates, who, between them, have seventeen arms and five hooks", if that were what was happening to the Baudelaires at the time (these being the heroes of the books). A wonderful approach to language, has Mr Snickett.

[cjmr]

When I watched the clip of that, I was thinking--did he just define the word he thought he used because when he looked up at the audience he noticed that everyone was sitting there with a (insert your best impression of Jon Stewart's WTF look here) on there face? Wish they'd had a camera on the press corps...

[cjmr]

Obviously that should be "their faces".

That's what I get for not taking advantage of the preview feature.

[Thlayli]

Mmmm, Cordy.

[Christopher]

So, the people we released because they weren't actually guilty of anything are still horrible people who hate America? Okay.

What Bush said here is idiotic on all conceivable levels.

What's worse, the safety of our troops depends in large part in having the trust of the Iraqi people. Since that's the case, shouldn't a response to the Amnesty International thing be in a form that isn't condescending and accusatory to the many Iraqis who think we do torture people?

Cripes, why did such a crappy diplomat choose to wage a war that required so much diplomacy?

[Penh]

Speaking of Jon Stewart, I can't believe no one's posted his response yet. "No, Mr. President, 'dissemble' means 'to not tell the truth.' 'Disassemble' is what we did to Iraq."

[B-W]

Every time this happens I am never sure whether he is just a clumsy speaker or he purposely does this to cultivate his, "I'm really not an elitist, fat-cat, corporate cocksucker" persona.

I have to assume that he purposely does this. Surely someone's told him how to pronounce "nuclear" by now!

[Fernmonkey]

I once caused deep and unintentional offence on a message board when I said that I'd always assumed that 'nucular' was just the way that Texans pronounce 'nuclear'.

The angry response from multiple Texans suggested that I'd got this one wrong.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

Wasn't watching that night, Penh. Glad to see Stewart's still on the ball as always!

[Kevin Gossett]

On the one hand, yes, he IS being constantly recorded, unlike the rest of us, and is an easy target when he misspeaks.

Here's what bothers me: Nucular. We all know is "nuclear," yet he still says "nucular." One of two things is going on:

1. His handlers don't want to (or can't) offend him by correcting him

2. They all would see it as weakness to change it now.

3. He doesn't care, and believes that the correct way to pronounce anything is the way the President of the United States pronounces it. Kind of like the old story of where the measure "foot" comes from (don't know if it's true or not) - that it was the length of the King's foot. Interesting concept, if not true.

[Sophist]

I can't believe I'm the first one to comment on this:

We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees.

Uh, the detainees aren't the ones the complaints are about, they're the ones making the complaints.

[Robin Lionheart]

Tom Toles's witty take on this:

"The Amnesty International report was based on statements of people who disassemble. That means not tell the truth. -- It's like prefabrication. That means lying about something you did before you do it."