Against "Make No Mistake" - Fight back against the worst Bushism of all

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.slate.com/id/2100685/

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, May 17, 2004, at 6:38 PM ET

Here at Slate, we've been known to derive amusement from the endlessly creative ways President George W. Bush finds to mangle the English language. But even inarticulate presidents can influence the way the rest of us speak. "Misunderestimate," for instance, is well on its way to becoming a real word, just as Warren G. Harding's botch of the word "normality" in 1920 gave us the now-accepted (if unlovely) term, "normalcy." But Dubya's greatest influence on the way the rest of us speak may be his overuse of the easy-to-pronounce rhetorical phrase, "make no mistake."

I do not count myself among those who hate President Bush. But I do hate the expression, "make no mistake." It's a bully-boy phrase, meant to warn that the speaker really means what he is saying. But shouldn't we always mean what we say—or, if we're politicians, at least pretend to? Even if you buy into the phrase's swagger, it isn't half so creative as "read my lips," which speechwriter Peggy Noonan put into George H.W. Bush's mouth when he promised not to raise taxes. ("Read my lips" had to be retired after Bush père broke that promise in 1990, but that's hardly Noonan's fault.) "Read my lips" is funny—unless, of course, it's spoken to a deaf person—and swagger always comes across better when it's leavened with humor. "Make no mistake," on the other hand, are the words not merely of a bully, but of a bully who lacks panache. It practically begs for a defiant response. Listen, buddy, I'll make a mistake whenever I goddamn well feel like it. And, of course, it's especially galling coming from Bush, whose presidency has been one long string of mistakes, most especially the one we're currently grappling with in Iraq.

The current president did not invent the phrase, "make no mistake," but he uses it a lot. The search engine for the White House Web site displays 227 instances, and, even discounting for the fact that some of these MNMs emanated from Bush apparatchiks like former press spokesman Ari Fleischer and Tom Ridge, I feel certain that's a gross undercount.

[speedoo]

1. Indeed.

The writer smacks down the punk.

People in the media should be doing this regularly. The Coward has proven himself to be a bully-boy and he should be called on it all the time.

[Democrats_win]

2. Safire's language column discussed another wing nut trick, deferentialism

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/magazine/16wwln_safire.html?ex=1302840000&en=6f5ea83edfbd365f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The vice president is a frequent deferentialist. Asked a couple of months ago about threatened Congressional restrictions on the National Security Agency's surveillance program, he told Jim Lehrer, on the "NewsHour" on PBS, that "the possible amendment, if you will, to additional legislation" would be damaging. (One year ago, Cheney used the same deferentialism on the subject of Iraq: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.")

If you will is a shortening of "if you will permit me to say" or "if you will pardon my saying so," which is not quite what the clipped phrase means. The speaker or writer needs no such permission; on the contrary, the shortening means "I'm going to say this, and you may not like it, but that's just too bad, so here goes." The point is not to show deference, as the words say, but to make a pass at submissive respect while making a forceful point.
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This is another bully-boy phrase to add to the list.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. It is called "CONDESCENDING", which this group is always doing.

They consider the entire voitng public "below" them.

con·de·scend·ing Pronunciation (knd-sndng)
adj.
Displaying a patronizingly superior attitude: "The independent investor's desire to play individual stocks may well worry some market veterans, but that smacks a little of Wall Street's usual condescending attitude toward small investors" Tom Petruno.

[Cyrano]

4. Make no mistake, but I dislike condescending people, if you will.

Now that's a sentence I'd love to see King George try to say without tripping all over himself.

[Spirochete]

5. * saying "make no mistake"

is like Keith Richards saying "never use drugs"