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Thursday, April 09, 2009

Waldmann Smackdown Watch

In a rare Event Elisabetta Addis asked Robert Waldmann for help with English (the more common event is I ask her how to spell something).

She asked for a qualifier for the word Democracy to describe the sort of things that Spain, Greece and Portugal became in the 70s.

R: Democracies
E: What was the Soviet Union
R: Not a Democracy
E: But they said they were
R: (visibly puffing up) in English words have meanings without needing modifiers. A lie is called a lie, not the liars "truth." A plainly false claim is not recognised by the language.
E: So is Italy a democracy now ?
R: ...
(crickets chirp).

Can I put this dialogue up on the web ?

In the name of absolute truth, I admit the posted version of the dialogue is an edited version of the actual real live dialogue (in English "the dialogue"). The characters R and E are fictional and any resemblence to actual real live people (in English "people") is approximate.

1 comment:

Hans Suter said...

"E: So is Italy a democracy now ?"
Even members of parliament would say no, Rita Bernardini, Donatella Porretti come to mind.