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September 8, 2009

Things That Make You Go Hummmm.....

Marginal Revolution: Sentences to ponder
"The Required Reports Prepared by State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education is not itself listed in the Required Reports Prepared by State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education."

Posted by Vanderleun at September 8, 2009 12:24 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

The sound you hear was Russel's paradox: Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves, contain itself?

Titus 1:12: One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons."

Posted by: Fat Man at September 8, 2009 1:09 PM

Yet.

Posted by: Ricky Raccoon at September 8, 2009 5:31 PM

I'm actually old enough to remember reading the Washington Star. There's not much to remember about the No. 2 D.C. newspaper. But one thing I enjoyed reading and still remember was the "Gobbledygook" feature which ran in the mid '70s. The Star asked for submissions from readers - many if not most from federal government bureaucrats - of written examples of muddled or tortured use of the English language. A published example from the Justice Department reads "Simply stated travel which is incidental to travel that involves the performance of work while traveling means travel to a point at which an employee begins to perform work while traveling or travel from a point at which an employee ceased performing work while traveling." Needless to say no such published feature exists in the known universe of today, let alone D.C. The reasons may involve (1) the fact that not only can only a tiny number of government bureaucrats actually critique the proper use of written English, but (2) probably even fewer newspaper editors and their staffs would be capable of assessing and choosing among the various submissions.

Posted by: boqueronman at September 10, 2009 2:58 PM

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