Bushisms: iiliteracy as a type of polysemy

2.1. BEYOND BUSHISMS

  Walk into any big-box bookstore and you can easily empty your wallet on compilations of President Bush's linguistic missteps. It's well-trodden late-show material for good reason -- the president talks funny. But the focus on Bush's tongue twisting belies a more complex reality: Bumbling aside, Bush and his speechwriters have developed a savvy rhetoric that sells his agenda, bolsters his base, and stifles dissent.

2.2. VARIOUS DEFINITIONS. 

  Misstatements from George W Bush about the only good thing that's come from his presidency is all the jokes about him. ("I believe that the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." "She's a West Texas girl, just like me." "More and more of our imports come from other countries." "I know how hard it is to put food on your family." "I understand small businesses. I was one"). A statement made by George W. Bush that makes little-no sense, and/or violates basic rules of grammar. A string of incoherent words, or blaringly obvious grammatical mistake made by an important administrative or governmental figure. Number of peculiar words, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, and other grammatical mistakes that have been made during the presidency of both George Bush and his son, George W. Bush. Any word that someone starts to say but then screws it up or makes up their own prefixes or suffixes to make it fit into context. An original way of saying what you don't mean.  

2.3. REASONS 

  Why do the George Bushes, older and younger, often confuse us more than words can say? Some experts believe that genetics may be one reason the verbal sins of the father are being visited on the son. “Linguistic loophole”: Former president George Bush and his son, presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush seem to share a malady one linguistic expert calls "Verbal Goulash Syndrome.'' But does learning or biology give rise to their mutual tendency to mangle English? Inside the human brain, a part of the frontal lobe called Broca's area directs the production of clear and intelligible speech. In the case of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, however, something between Broca's area and the tongue has an occasional tendency to go comically wrong.

  When Bush endeavors to say "tariffs and barriers," it can come out "terriers and bariffs." "Handcuffs" mysteriously becomes "cuff links," and "tactical nuclear weapons" morphs into "tacular weapons." Once, Bush's brain cruelly caused its owner to pronounce "missile launches" as "mential losses."

  The insensitive louts of the press generally respond to these examples of Bushspeak by making fun of their author. A network producer on the Bush bus nicknamed him "The English Patient." Garry Trudeau and Maureen Dowd parody his gaffes. The online magazine Slate anthologizes the growing collection of "Bushisms." (Last week's installment: "I hope we get to the bottom of the answer.")

  Surely we wouldn't make fun of a man suffering from diabetic attacks or epileptic seizures. And though Bush's affliction isn't so serious, there's the possibility that he can't control it. To examine this possibility, we should know the opinions of leading speech pathologists. They haven't examined the man, but they have a few ideas.

  "It's a Verbal Goulash Syndrome," pronounces Sam Chwat, a New York speech therapist who has helped the likes of Julia Roberts and Robert De Niro say their lines. Lyn Goldberg, a George Washington University speech pathologist, pronounces the governor "motorically vulnerable." Ray Kent, a University of Wisconsin expert, says the governor suffers from "sequencing errors" and "lexical confusions."

  Clearly when Bush attended Perseverance Month at a New Hampshire school, he famously declared: "This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You've got to preserve." Another time, he repeatedly insisted that "I denounce interracial dating." (He meant he denounced a policy against interracial dating.)

  Part of the problem is not of his making: It's the fault of snobbish Easterners who just can't understand his West Texas dialect. Sure, he talks about "nucular" warheads, but so do many Southerners, including Jimmy Carter. So what if "obfuscate" rolls off Bush's lips as "obscufate" and "obsfucate"? They understand him just fine in Midland. Yet he continues "getting pillared in the press and cartoons," as he puts it, grasping for "pilloried."

  Bush's aides say the malapropisms are the byproduct of an effervescent nature and an agile mind. Why the gobbledygook? "Because his brain faster works than his mouth does," jokes Mindy Tucker, the governor's spokeswoman.

  It's true that Bush speaks far more freely than his Democratic rival, Al Gore, who gets panned for his slow and deliberate speaking style. Gore chooses his words carefully and corrects his own mistakes, but he orates like a somnambulist.

  Some of Bush's errors could happen to any person under pressure and public scrutiny, particularly when their off-the-cuff remarks are transcribed for posterity. Surely it was an honest mistake when he chanted: "If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign." Obviously, he knows it's not correct that he said, "I understand small business growth - I was one," and "There is madmen in the world and there are terror," and "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

  Bush, however, unlike Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, doesn't get the benefit of the doubt after a linguistic lapse. Perhaps it's because of his history of related flubs: his juxtaposing Slovenia and Slovakia, and his East Timorians, Grecians and Kosovians.

  Bush also has a rich tradition of verbal pratfalls. Bill Minutaglio, a Dallas Morning News reporter and Bush biographer, was the recipient of this Bush puzzler six years ago: "It was just inebriating what Midland was all about then." Presumably, Bush was reaching for "intoxicating."

  Speech pathologist Chwat says the governor is probably modeling his speech after that of his famous father, consciously or unconsciously. It's simply the way he learned to talk, Chwat says.  Famous for coining phrases and words such as "hyporhetorical questions" and "hypothecate," Bush the elder constantly spouted Yogi Berraisms, once imploring: "Please don't look at part of the glass, the part that is only less than half full."

  Indeed, some of the gaffes of Bush fils sound like his father's. The son launched this gem early in the campaign: "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and we knew exactly who the "they' were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who "them' was. Today, we're not so sure who the "they' are, but we know they're there."

  Tired clichés breathe new life on the governor's tongue. "We ought to make the pie higher," he opines, and suggests that one "can't take the high horse and claim the low road." Particularly if he is one of those Internet millionaires "who have become rich beyond their means." Better call the credit bureau.

  "He has a singular output channel, and he's jamming it with too many words," Chwat says. Some other errors, he adds, are evidence of an "incomplete education" (despite Bush's two Ivy League degrees). Among the flubs Chwat puts in this category: When Bush says that "I don't have to accept their tenants," instead of tenets, and when he talks about education being about more than "bricks and mortars," using the term for heavy artillery instead of the construction mixture. But is Bush's problem simply a matter of nurture? Other scientists are convinced that nature has some role. Robert Shprintzen, an otolaryngologist and speech pathologist at the State University of New York's Upstate Medical University, says Bush's speech pattern, like everybody's, is influenced by genetics.

  Much of the way people talk is biological, Shprintzen says, dictated by the physical structure of the brain, the number of brain cells and the level of neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Obviously, George W. would inherit characteristics from his old man; "even children who have been separated from their parents at birth have been found to be astonishingly like their parents," Shprintzen says. Still, Gov. Bush's speech errors are arguably worse than his old man's: President Bush switched words and contorted sentences, but his son occasionally produces outright gibberish. That leads GWU's Goldberg to make a worrisome observation: Goldberg says Bush shares some traits with those suffering from a serious speech disorder known as apraxia, which at its worst leaves its victims unable to utter anything meaningful. The disorder, often caused by a stroke, disrupts the neural programming of speech-related muscles, causing trouble selecting, timing and ordering sounds, and a tendency to shorten words. But Goldberg hastens to add that she isn't diagnosing Bush with the disorder and, in fact, doubts he is apraxic. The symptoms are likely coincidental, in the same way someone with a winter cough shares certain symptoms with a lung cancer patient. Still, Goldberg says, "it's striking when you see these sound problems and timing errors in his speech." Whatever the cause, the English Patient should survive this malady. Of greater concern is what happens to the rest of us. "The problem is, it's catching," says Richard Wolffe, who has been following the governor for the Financial Times. "I can't even say "tariffs' anymore. I say "terriers'." Wolffe, who kept a log of Bush's verbal creations on his laptop computer, found his collection destroyed when the Bush campaign bus, suspiciously, ran over the laptop. Maybe that's what Bush meant by a mential loss.

2.4. BUSHISMS: BEST MOMENTS

  It was an era marked with controversy, anxieties at home and abroad, and a growing polarization in the American electorate, but if we took away the heady politicking and policy, Bush's reign can be boiled down to a series of great press shots and even greater verbal misfires. Putting a positive spin on things, it could even seem a little like one cheerful if simple lad from Texas embarking on the eight-year ride of a lifetime. Let’s take a light-hearted look at some of the best moments...

Smoothing over the past

Bush paid a visit to Japan in February 2002 - the ties between the US and Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi at a historical high due to the latter's support for the "War on Terror". Enjoying such close relations, Bush could be forgiven for being a little too bubbly about US-Japan relations: "For a century and a half now," he enthused, "America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times." What's a world war between friends?

Hail to the "commander guy"

"The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear - I'm a commander guy." - Washington DC, May 2, 2007.

Guesstimating the Queen's age

Bush was understandably reverent when the Queen of England paid his revolutionary shores a visit. "The American people are proud to welcome your Majesty back to the United States, a nation you've come to know very well. After all you've dined with 10 US presidents. You've helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 - in 1976," Bush said. Bush then looked at the queen sheepishly, as she peered back at him from beneath her black and white hat. "She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child," Bush would later say.

"Mission Accomplished"

Declare victory early, and often - it's a critical strategy for those wanting to win the war of words. Bush let a mighty Stars and Stripes Banner do the talking for him on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham: "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED". Rousing stuff - it was just a pity that it referred to the ongoing invasion of Iraq, at the somewhat premature date of May 2003. Even the man himself recanted on this later as one of his biggest mistakes.

Bush, upon being shown a map of Brazil:  "Wow, Brazil is big!" - 6 November, 2005.

Bush the Educator:  In fiery form on the 2000 campaign trail, Bush lamented the standards education had sunk to in the 1990s. Railing against a system favouring programmes that didn't get results, he isolated the problem - and maybe his own shortcomings: "Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?" Later: "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." In 2005, he was no softer on federal education requirements, too impatient even to limit 'literacy' to its dictionary meaning: "We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives - like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write."

Bush as Interior Decorator

Those who liked to paint Bush as a fighter, not a lover, had a disappointing tendency to focus on deeds rather than his inherently optimistic outlook. "My job is a job to make decisions." he once gravely intoned. "I'm a decision - if the job description were, 'What do you do?' - it's decision-maker." His first decision came when he was asked what colour rug he wanted in the Oval Office: "I said, 'I want it to say something' - the president has got to be a strategic thinker - and I said to her, 'Make sure the rug says 'optimistic person comes to work.'"

Bush as Genderbender

"I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me." - Nashville, Tennessee, May 27, 2004.

Thus, the analysis showed that it is impossible to unequivocally determine whether bushisms are the result of violations of the speech or the fact of illiteracy. No result of the study also showed that the pattern of bushisms emergence is directly dependent on the competence of the speaker, incomplete awareness of the possibilities of using the language of a speech and language illiteracy. This study provides an opportunity to take into account all the above information related to bushisms and be careful in the usage to avoid the conflicts and misunderstandings. 

CONCLUSION 

  Thus, summarizing the research, we can come to following conclusion - in American English, Bushism is a word or phrase unique to the style of President George W. Bush while speaking publicly and usually extemporaneously. While any public figure speaking in so many venues over time is prone to unflattering errors, Bush's regular use of unusual grammatical construction has some common characteristics that have given him a hallmark style:

- Adding agentive endings to words not usually accustomed to such treatment, such as suiciders, game changer, and truth teller;

- Splicing words together in unusual combinations, such as misunderestimated and musta could've;

- Odd sentence agreement, such as "We had a chance to visit with Teresa Nelson who's a parent, and a mom or a dad."

  Quotes from Bush's speeches that create an impression of incompetence are often called Bushisms. Many quotes, sometimes taken out of context, seem to imply that Bush has significant misconceptions about geography, history, political processes, and the world in general. There is no easy way to tell how many of the quotes reflect Bush's actual knowledge and opinions and how many are merely results of verbal mishaps, but that has not stopped some of Bush's critics from using a number of embarrassing mistakes in efforts to discredit him.

  The above-given information confirms the fact that the objectives and the purposes of this research work are solved. This work has helped me to learn much more interesting about bushisms and other related linguistic terms. Analysis of speech of American President interested me, so  in future I intend to wider my horizons in this sphere especially concerning the development of such unusual phenomenon as Bushisms. 

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