Chomsky support for Khmer Rouge (Usenet debate, Sep 98, 1/5)
file added 001222
My original text contained this error (italicized):
As a Nobel-Prize winning linguist, Prof. Chomsky is a master of
ambiguity and deniability.
As Nathen Folkert, a supporter of Prof. Chomsky, pointed out, there is no Nobel Prize in linguistics. I presumably confabulated a "Nobel Prize" with some other distinction Prof. Chomsky had earned in linguistics.
From: Nathan Folkert nfolkert@stanford.edu
Newsgroups:
alt.anarchism,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Global Petition Puts Pressure on US to Abolish Death Penalty
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:25:11 -0800
Lines: 49 [most omitted here]
Message-ID: Pine.GSO.4.21.0012201459360.4334-100000@fable7.Stanford.EDU
[...]
By the way, Hugo, Chomsky never won a Nobel prize. There is no Nobel prize in linguistics. I don't think "deniability" is even a topic studied by modern scientific linguists, though I could be mistaken.
[rest omitted]
As would be made even clearer in a follow-up post, Mr. Folkert wished to make an issue of my association of "ambiguity and deniability" with the science of linguistics. He has a point -- attorneys, public-relations consultants, and professors in some other social sciences can also study "ambiguity and deniability" with intellectual rigor. Nevertheless, in Prof. Chomsky's case, it is fair editorial comment.
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