[lit-ideas] Re: Tautology, Patent & Other

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:30:30 -0500

In addition, if a parent says to a child, "You're not going to the orgy and
that's that",  he's not saying to the kid: you're not going and the fact
that you're not going means the fact that you're not going.  That's
nonsense.  The parent is saying, your'e not going, case closed, stop asking
me, get the hell out of my face, etc.  You know that.  I know that you know
that, and the American people know that you know that.

Tautologies are hothouse plants.  No one speaks in tautologies except many
politicians in their attempts to say nothing new.

Mike Geary
Memphis





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 4:17 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Tautology, Patent & Other


>
> > erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> > Is  "that's that" a tautology?
> >
> JL replies:
> > Well, yes, at the level of what is _explicated_ -- as all tautologies
> > (patent and other) should be judged (_contra_ Geary). Note that 'that's
> that'
> > usually occurs as a closing utterance-part of one's conversational move,
>
>
> But, of course, this is precisely where JL goes awry.
>
> If someone asks me, Who is JL?  and I respond: "JL is JL", that's a
> tautology.  Nothing new has been predicated about the subject.
>
> However, if someone says to me, Can you believe what JL wrote today?! and
I
> respond: "JL is JL", that's NOT a tautology.  Something new has been
> predicated about the subjected, namely that JL is often outrageous in his
> expressions and one should not be surprised.  In each sentence the
predicate
> 'JL' is entirely different in meaning.  The fact that the predicate
consists
> of the same two letters is coincidental and nothing more.
>
> I'm getting tired of having to explain this.  There's no such thing as an
> explicated tautology vs an implicatured non-one.  Either it's a goddamn
> tautology or it ain't.  If something new is predicated, it ain't.  Whether
> that predication takes the same form as the subject is irrelevant.  Get it
> right, for Christ's sake.
>
> Mike Geary
> Memphis, down in Dixie -- that's a tautology.
>
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