Face Off: War of the Words

Harvard linguists take verbal jousting to new heights.

by Sean McManus
March/April 2008

Both Steven Pinker’s latest scholarly tome, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, and Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein’s popular work, Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes, help us understand the way we use words. But that’s not all the two books have in common …

• Contains a two-page explanation of how toilets flush.
• Identifies Aristotle as the teacher of Alexander the Great.
• Highbrow take on profanity: “In the realm of swearing, we see structural parallelism in the numerous euphemisms for bullshit that share only its metrical and morphological structure.”
• Influenced by Noam Chomsky.
• Calls the work of cognitive linguist George Lakoff "lollapalooza."
• Lists over 20 synonyms for having sex.
• Is based on decades of experimental research on cognition and language.

• Is meant to be read while sitting on the toilet.
• Describes Aristotle as “the Karl Rove of the Golden Age.”
• Contains a section called “Selected Bios of bullshitters.”
• Influenced by Jon Stewart.
• Calls the work of cognitive linguist George Lakoff “counterweaseling.”
• Describes the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac.
• Is based on the “Philogag School of Philosophy,” which maintains that all philosophical concepts worth knowing are actually pretty funny.

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• 
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• 
  I Am the Great and Powerful Number 25. Heed My Words.
• 
  How Not To Be Poor
• 
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  The Fictional Ten
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  This Month's Best Offensive Harvard Joke
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  It’s Not Exactly Lying

Keywords:

• Face-off,
• Steven Pinker,
• Humor,
• Books & Authors,
• Academia

Mentioned:

• 
  Steven Pinker : GSAS Class of 1979
• 
  Daniel Klein : College Class of 1961
• 
  Thomas Cathcart : College Class of 1961
• 
  Noam Chomsky : GSAS Class of 1955