User Clip: Chomsky Speaks!

(Another in a series of rhetorical mishaps)

Out There-itis, or the misplaced, much less wholly gratuitous, speaking to place, has unfortunately spread across the land (out there) like wildfire. Surely born of the street, witness its meteoric rise of late inside broadcast journalism, and even into the halls of Congress and the White House.

But to catch even such a renowned linguist as Noam Chomsky succumbing to the affliction is incredibly demoralizing, to say the least. Granted, he utters the nonsense phrase during a litany of unattributed quotes, but given the slight pause, let alone the provenance of the reference (and the earlier interruption - "namely us"), it seems more likely that this was his own interjection rather than the words of another. Then again, were it not so, at least we wouldn't have to raise the white flag just yet! close