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 #2 (permalink) Fri May 30, 2008 22:09 pm What happened |
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| Quote: | | concotion of lies or truth |
How can one concoct truth? |
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Molly
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 Ralf
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| #4 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:31 am What happened |
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| The truth dwells somewhere in-between |
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Fred2008
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| #5 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:18 am What happened |
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[quote="Ralf"] | Molly wrote: | Nice try. Read the whole sentence and put a comma in a place of your choice.
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Clarity, Ralf. Your sentence could quite easily mean:
| Quote: | | Revenge and concotion of lies to generate revenue or concotion of truth to generate revenue? |
Unless you feel one cannnot generate revenue by telling lies. Do you? |
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Molly
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| #6 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 12:20 pm What happened |
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| Ralf wrote: | Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has just published his 'memoirs'.
What do you make of it? Revenge and concotion of lies or truth to generate revenue? |
It's supposedly a mixture of lies and truth to generate revenue for McClellan, but its release is evidently timed as an attempt to damage the Republican party for the presidential elections. This is a common stunt in an election year. However, it doesn't seem to be working very well this time, since McClellan was kind of a lightweight and supposedly not very good at his job. Talking heads are coming on TV now saying that White House press secretaries aren't really such insiders, and the bad ones largely parrot what they're told to say, so McClellan couldn't have had all the exclusive knowledge he says he did.
Mainly, though, it's an election year stunt that we see all the time.
What you're going to see now is an attempt by the Democrats to convince people that John McCain is the same thing as George W. Bush. They do this whenever there's an unpopular Republican president leaving office. When Jimmy Carter ran against the very clean Gerald Ford, Carter often didn't answer debate questions, but used his time as an opportunity to slather Ford with the sins of his resigned predecessor, Richard Nixon. You'll see something like this in the election coming up. It's already starting, in fact.
The whole thing is going to be interesting, because you've got a relatively clean war hero running against the nation's first Marxist candidate. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #7 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 12:27 pm What happened |
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| Molly wrote: | | Quote: | | concotion of lies or truth |
How can one concoct truth? |
To concoct is, etymologically, "to cook together".
"To concoct the truth" would therefore be "to combine certain facts in a way that does not involve falsehood, but is misleading".
Cf. Alan Clark's coinage, "being economical with the actualité".
In the context of political memoirs, the phrase would be peculiarly apt.
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MrPedantic
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| #8 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 15:41 pm What happened |
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11 English pages for "concoct truth".
4 English pages for "concoct the truth".
1,460 English pages for "concoct lies".
And:
52,500 English pages for "the lacking of".
Funny how Mr P likes to deny marked and/or uncommon usage when they rub up against his knowledge - how he loves to insist on default forms. Then, he suddenly calls on marked and/or uncommon usage when he feels like it. LOL! |
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Molly
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| #9 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 15:52 pm What happened |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Mainly, though, it's an election year stunt that we see all the time.. |
Yes, I've seen this type of thing happening many times, instigated by Reps or Dems. These kind of stalling tactics are endemic to many countries.
| Jamie (K) wrote: | | The whole thing is going to be interesting, because you've got a relatively clean war hero running against the nation's first Marxist candidate. |
Jamie, I know that your political views differ from mine, but isn't this polarising statement a bit extreme?
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Ralf
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| #10 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 15:59 pm What happened |
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| Molly wrote: | 11 English pages for "concoct truth".
4 English pages for "concoct the truth".
1,460 English pages for "concoct lies".
And:
52,500 English pages for "the lacking of". |
Try these, old boy:
1. Concoct the truth, etc.
"concoct truth" + "concoct the truth" = 18 hits
"concoct lies" + "concoct the lies" = 1,513 hits
18 / (18 + 1513) = 0.01%
2. The lacking of, etc.
"the lacking of" = 30,800 hits
"the lack of" = 10,500,000 hits
30800 / (30800 + 10500000) = 0.003%
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MrPedantic
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| #11 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 16:00 pm What happened |
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| Try again, Mr P. |
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Molly
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| #12 (permalink) Sun Jun 01, 2008 20:08 pm What happened |
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| Ralf wrote: | | Jamie (K) wrote: | | The whole thing is going to be interesting, because you've got a relatively clean war hero running against the nation's first Marxist candidate. |
Jamie, I know that your political views differ from mine, but isn't this polarising statement a bit extreme? |
I should have modified the word, as some commentators do, and called him a quasi-Marxist. His beliefs are largely from the 1930s and 1960s and are heavily influenced by Marxism. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Acerbity | History of WW2 |
