[lit-ideas] Vegetarian -- and Metalinguistic Negation

 
In a message dated 8/26/2004 5:19:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
Scribe1865@xxxxxxx writes:
http://www.monpa.com/index.html
"I'm not a vegetarian because I love  animals, I'm a vegetarian because 
I 
hate plants." -  A.  Whitney Brown
-----


Interesting case of 'metalinguistic' negation, as L. Horn calls  it.
 
"I'm not a vegetarian" suggests that A. Whitney Brown is _not_ a  vegetarian. 
The continuation of the phrase, "because ..." does not then _negate_  
'vegetarian', but one of the alleged reasons why A. Whitney Brown _may be_  one.
 
It's like, "Why I'm a Vegetarian".
 
On the other hand, the title to Bertrand Russell's book, "Why I'm not a  
Christian" is _not_ metalinguistic, since Bertrand Russell was _not_ a  
Christian.
 
Strictly, in terms of punctuation, I believe the quotation should go:
 
    "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals;
     I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants."
 
-- i.e. a ";" or a "." seems to work better than a simple "," --  right?
 
Cheers,
 
JL






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