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Face Off: War of the Words

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.