Mulling over George Pope to STEVE ASHER 06 Jan 2005

Hi George...

SA> I'll probably get a copy later today, it is in the local bookshop, which
SA> has been closed for the holidays. "Misspeak" and
"misspoke" don't appear
SA> in my fairly recent dictionary, but they would normally have meanings
SA> like other "mis-" words - mishear, misplace etc - as you
say, "slips
SA> of the tongue".

 GP> Well,what one expects a word SHOULD mean is often nothing like how
 GP> 'they' USE the terms!

Well, I got the book, and the entry for Misspeak / misspoke is...

1. To express oneself imperfectly.
2. To present the unknown as known; possibility as fact; the desired
   as attained.
3. To lie; tell a whopper, a porkie; pull the wool, etc.

SA>  GP>   A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor
SA>  GP> recorded the following on the patient's chart: 
"Patient failed to
SA>  GP> fulfill his wellness potential."
SA>
SA> "Negative patient outcome". But your example is good,
because the fault
SA> lies with the patient, not with the treatment or the doctor/s.

 GP> That's just good medical administration, right?

Possibly, but the Administrator might describe it as "freeing up a bed
in the emergency ward". (There's never enough beds in hospitals, even
with closed wards. The beds in the closed wards apparently just vanish.)

SA>  GP>   A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed
SA>  GP> anti- personnel devices."  You probably call them bombs.
SA>
SA> Hmmm... I wonder if they would let me board a plane if I declared I was
SA> carrying a "horizontally deployed anti-radiation and precipitation
SA> device";
SA> (an umbrella).

 GP> I like it! *G*

You can have it, but use it with caution. Or "careful caution", as
Alexander Haig once said (or misspoke).

The year is only chronologically short, but this bit of world's best 
practice weaseling sets a high benchmark that will be challenging
to out-leverage:

The US struck the "wrong" Iraqi house with a not-so-precision-guided
bomb, and while it "regrets the loss of possibly innocent lives", it
described the house as being "part of an ongoing target analysis".

[From US Captain Patricia Brewer speaking (or misspeaking) with 
the BBC's Julian Marshall, as heard (or misheard) on Radio National]

Cheers, Steve..

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