02nd Dec 2003
Plain English Campaign Is Plain Stupid
Some sanctimonious gits in England run what they call the Plain English Campaign, annually dolling out a “Foot in Mouth Prize” for some mangler of the language. This year they awarded it to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for his memorable quote during a war briefing (MSNBC/AP report):
”Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns, there are things we know we know,” Rumsfeld said.”We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns ? the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Yes, it’s slightly confusing, especially as he prefaces it all with “as we know,” but it would take a small mind not to understand what he was saying. Moreover, when I first heard it — live, I think, or around the time of the original press conference, anyway — I thought it was a pretty intelligent philosophical thing to observe.
That is to appreciate not only what we know we don’t know (astrophysics, for example, in my case) but also the things we don’t know we don’t know (I’d cite an example, but obviously I don’t know what I don’t know, though I’m constantly discovering it).
Believe me, I’m no fan of Donald Rumsfeld at this point, but to assert that his quote above is nonsensical is either the product of a very stupid or closed-minded people or, as I rather suspect, a lame attempt at a veiled political point: Rumsfeld (and by extension, Bush) is bad.
No tags for this post
Leave a Reply