Comments on: Cops in Atlanta Shouted that They Were Police and Wore Vests Labeled “Police”

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:37:46 +0000

Just for the record, not all of the profane words dubbed as “expletives” are in fact expletives. Expletives, by definition, have no meaning but exist to fill a grammatical (or, by extension, other) function. Classic examples of expletives are the “it” in “it’s raining” and the first “there” (but not the other two) in “there is no there there.”

Curse words are often, but not always, expletives. If I were to say “I hate Steve Verdon’s f***ing guts,” no one in his right mind would interpret this statement as a representation that Steve Verdon’s guts actually f***, nor even that he has certain guts that are somehow related to f***ing, and I hate those guts of his, but am cool with the other ones. Rather, the sentence would be interpreted as semantically identical to “I hate Steve Verdon’s guts,” with the f-word adding nothing but a little non-semantic “mmpf.” So in this case, the f-word is an expletive.

By contrast, if you and I were watching a porn flick, and I said “hey, look at all those people f***ing,” the f-word would have actual semantic content (the sentence wouldn’t mean the same thing as “hey, look at all those people”), so in this case, the f-word is not an expletive. Vulgar, sure, but not an expletive.

Thus, the answer to Scott’s question depends on whether calling Steve Verdon a “douchebag” means something different than simply referring to him a bag. I tend to think it does.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:54:35 +0000

What gets me about this guy is that I do a WHOLE POST, which is linked by Instapundit and widely circulated, detailing the errors I thought I made — and he pretends like the post was never published. And then he is a snide little dick, whining about how I didn’t go back and correct every little post I ever did on the topic. As if I would majorly get on a newspaper for having someone who made an error write a whole new article — by the original author — explaining why they made the mistake. I can see pointing it out to the newspaper, while 1) praising their new article and 2) being polite about it. But dishonest [expletive deleted]bag Steve Verdon did neither. You’d never know that I had done another post if you listened to that pustule.

By: Scott Jacobs

Scott Jacobs — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:03:26 +0000

Ah. Ok then. Just wanted to make sure I stayed on top of the latest developments in swearing. I’d hate to fall behind the curve.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:56:58 +0000

Nah, it’s the same expletive that was deleted in dog[expletive deleted].

I didn’t delete them when I responded to the guy on Balko’s site.

By: Scott Jacobs

Scott Jacobs — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:55:11 +0000

“douche” is an expletive now?

Huh. The things you learn…

By: Patterico

Patterico — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:47:49 +0000

Nevertheless, it’s worth doing an update to make sure that all those people who never heard the nationwide story that the cops lied — and somehow missed my Instapundit-linked post that is at the top of the Google results for Kathryn Johnston and my site, that talked about how the cops lied — won’t be misled by this post!!!!eleven!!.

Steve Verdon, you are a dishonest, humorless, ideologically rabid piece of dog[expletive deleted]. Thanks for the comment.

Now go dig up all the other posts of mine that mention Ms. Johnston BUT DON’T DISCLOSE TO READERS THAT THE COPS LIED!!!!!11111!!!1!1!!! I’m not going to bother because it’s a stupid exercise and any moron can find the post where I acknowledged errors. But knock yourself out, you [expletive deleted]ing [expletive deleted]bag.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:18:11 +0000

I don't think the post is inaccurate, although by far the most widely linked post I have ever done on this topic is the one where I reported the cops lied their way into the house. I had that up before Radley Balko, and I bet before Steve Verdon, in this post.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:32:40 +0000

No, but it does end with “stay tuned,” which you obviously didn’t.

By: Steve Verdon

Steve Verdon — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:26:47 +0000

Interesting, nothing on this post indicating that Balko was right all along. Even after all this time. Hmmm….

By: The Agitator » Blog Archive » Failing Upward: New Frontiers in Scalia’s “New Professionalism”

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:34:31 +0000

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