In a message dated 10/7/2015 2:00:19 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
ewf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I was going to say paternalistic state since that seemed to be the
conventional term but at the last minute I changed my mind and used
maternalistic instead.
Oh, I love a re-figuring.
This is what I call when an utterer re-figures a figure of speech!
For the record, I see that Paternalism has a Wikipedia entry, but not
definitionally too promising perhaps when it states in its opening sentence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism
Paternalism (or parentalism)
For surely even Dorothy Parker would allow that a mother is a parent!
This reminds me of a quotation (one of the few) that I actually find
humorous in the Oxford Book of Humorous Quotations (I can have a dry sense of
humour on Wednesdays): it reads something to the effect (perhaps by Dr. Spock)
that
"parents are the least ones who should be allowed to have children."
I'm not sure what the m-intention of the utterer was but it came out with a
lovely re-figuring into what Quine would call a 'logical contradiction'!
Cheers,
Speranza
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