The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time (8 page)

I suspect that my frequent plunge into etymology in this column has just been satirized, but maybe I flatter myself. He goes on in true Supreme Court style to restate the question at hand about
benevolent compassion
and to address it:

“But assuming the premise, is it redundancy to attribute to a noun a quality that it always possesses?” Scalia’s opinion: “Surely not. We speak of ‘admirable courage’ (is courage ever not admirable?); a ‘cold New England winter’ (is a New England winter ever not cold?); the ‘sweet, green spring’ (is springtime ever not sweet and green?). It seems to me perfectly acceptable to use an adjective to emphasize one of the qualities that a noun possesses, even if it always possesses it. The writer wants to stress the coldness of the New England winter, rather than its interminable length, its gloominess, its snowiness and many other qualities that it always possesses. And that is what I was doing with ‘benevolent compassion’—stressing the social-outreach, maternalistic, goo-goo character of the court’s compassion.”

Let me interrupt here to footnote the meaning and etymology of
goo-goo,
which some may mistakenly take as akin to
gooey.
This was the derisive appellation given by the
New York Sun
in the 1890s to local action groups calling themselves “Good Government Clubs”; New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt castigated fellow reformers who voted independent as “those prize idiots, the
Goo-Goos
.”

I have just returned from northern Greece, where I read, in the
International Herald Tribune,
your piece on my redundancy. It was a nice job, and I am flattered that you thought my analysis not only correct but also worthy of recounting.

By the way, I did not include the bracketed “that” as an intentional jab—it was just the way I was accustomed to using the verb “differentiate.”
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
The Latin etymology was likewise not an intentional parody: I happen to think it useful, and knew that you, of all people, would not consider it out of place. You were correct, however, that my reference to “off-the-cuff thoughts” was (shall we say?) something of an exaggeration.

I hope you will not think it ungrateful if I observe that you are wrong about my use of indicative “was” instead of the subjunctive “were.” “Were” would have been appropriate if my sentence had read “my reference ‘differentiating [that],’” etc. In fact, however, I wrote, “can be absolved”—and that takes a “was.”

Justice Antonin Scalia

Supreme Court of the United States

Washington, D.C.

Philosophers have made the distinction you and Justice Scalia seemed to be striving for when you discussed whether “benevolent compassion” was tautologous. They differentiate between defining characteristics and accompanying characteristics. All elephants may be gray, but grayness is not a defining characteristic of an elephant, merely an accompanying one.

David Kahn

Great Neck, New York

As you analyzed Antonin Scalia’s sentence, I kept waiting for you to attack his use of the word “it.” Justice Scalia was quoted as saying: “In my view today’s opinion exercises a benevolent compassion that the law does not place it within our power to impose.” That “it” seems incorrect to me—and also to my husband, the ex-English professor. If we’re right, why didn’t you dispute the usage? And if we’re wrong, we’ll just shut up.

Gerry Muir

Mamaroneck, New York

Justice Scalia, wrong in so many other ways, was correct in using “was” rather than “were” in the sentence “(My use) of benevolent compassion can be absolved of redundancy only if I was differentiating (that) from some other kind of compassion,” because the event actually occurred. “Were” is hypothetical, suggesting that he might be contemplating some differentiating but hadn’t actually done it.

Then to my shock and dismay, in regarding the opening line, “… the Supreme Court held … that the game of golf would not be fundamentally altered if a handicapped contestant … was allowed to ride in a golf cart,” I fear that you commit the error yourself. Here, “were” is clearly correct, because golfers were (supposedly) not riding in carts before the sentence was handed down.

Eric Conger

Weehawken, New Jersey

Justice Scalia’s statement that “the very essence of ‘giftness’ … is being free” brings to mind a case in law school more than fifty years ago. The Mary Carter Paint Company had advertised buy two, get one free. The Supreme Court held that this was not false advertising, as in the context is meant only free of extra cost.

For this matter, not every gift is really free. The gift of liberty, a performer’s gift, many others require sacrifice and diligence.

Robert Obrecht

Old Saybrook, Connecticut

Justice Scalia referred to a past question, hence “was.” You, contrary to fact, prescribed “were.” But that is present subjunctive, cf “If I were you.” A pox on both your clauses. If I had been you (hard swallow) I would have suggested a past subjunctive form, “If only I had been differentiating …” Justice Scalia began his dissent with this sentence: “In my view today’s opinion exercises a benevolent compassion that the law does not place it within our power to impose.” Speaking of redundancy, what’s with that “it”?

Carl d’Angio

Mount Vernon, New York

I don’t accept Justice Scalia’s argument as he has made it. There is a distinction between denotative meanings of words (what I think he must mean when he says
“distinctive characteristic
that the noun conveys”) and their connotations. Justice Scalia chooses
admirable courage
as his first example, remarking, “is courage ever not admirable?” It stereotypically is, which is why
admirable courage
is a cliché. But it is not redundant in the way that
brave courage
and
intrepid courage
are, even though the etymologies of the noun and both adjectives are quite distinct, because the meaning of
courage
denotes the qualities that
brave
and
intrepid
do.

On a different tack, he chooses
winter
and
spring,
words that have gigantic semantic fields, with several denotational and connotational meanings, and countless metaphorical extensions. We can talk about
winter
in its astronomical sense and comment about both typical and atypical meteorological conditions associated with that period (
warm
versus
cold
New England winters); we can speak about winters in our souls and
springs
in our hearts without reference to temperature or colors because those words have been associated with a vast lexicon of metaphors for psychological states since literature began, if not conversation.

But I am even more interested in Justice Scalia’s take on the word compassion itself. He paints a picture of “compassionate” persons who flee, shuddering, from those who are suffering because they fear the same will happen to themselves. He contrasts this with benevolent compassion, described as “social-outreach, maternalistic, (and) goo-goo …” Well, I think it’s now clear: the differentiation is not between
malevolent compassion
and
benevolent compassion:
it is between
benevolent compassion
and
conservative compassion.
Many of us have been wondering about this “conservative compassion” for a long time and will now be able to correct the inferences when we next hear it.

One other point: You correctly point out that Justice Scalia failed to use the subjunctive (
was
rather than
were differentiating
). But what about your opening sentence? “… (I)f a handicapped contestant in a tournament was allowed to ride …” Why not
were allowed ? They are precisely the same with respect to clause construction, and both require the subjunctive, playing by
the old rules. (I quite agree that the English subjunctive has receded, at a galloping pace, out of our modern speech and taken its last refuge in the prose of literati well into their dotage. Alas.)

Marcia Haag

Assistant Professor of Linguistics

University of Oklahoma

Norman, Oklahoma

I agree with Justice Scalia that compassion is not always benevolent. I think that Dido had sympathetic consciousness of another’s distress but she was, I believe, also saying to Aeneas who was in the harbor ready to leave her, “I’ll give you something to remember me by.” She then stabbed herself and jumped onto a burning pyre. Justice Scalia was, perhaps, making reference to Aristotle’s notions of the audience’s engagement at a tragic drama. The audience may be saying and feeling, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Or, “Better s/he than me.” This is where the catharsis of pity and terror is felt by the audience.
Catharsis
now carries the taint of scientism made fashionable by the Freud-bashers.

The Justice was stressing the “social-outreach, maternalistic, goo-goo” character of the court’s decision. I could go back and read his original statement of “benevolent compassion” with a different ear. I can hear “be-NEV-olent” with the second syllable drawn out in a sticky sweet tone. This is much like the distinction between “LIGHThousekeeping” and “lightHOUSEkeeping.”

Frank Kermode tells us that the language of
Hamlet
is dominated by doubles (as in
sticky sweet
) of all kinds. The figure of speech is hendiadys. This means, literally, one-through-two.
Law and order, kith and kin, house and home
are well known examples. Hamlet was preoccupied with questions of identity, sameness, and the union of separate selves—joined opposites. I think that the Justice was responding to the cry of redundancy the way Hamlet responded—with strain, stress, as if the parts were related in some not perfectly evident way. Justice Scalia was being very Aristotelian in referring to the essence of compassion. Aristotle differs from Plato in his belief that certain things in the natural world embody essences.

Donald J. Coleman, MD

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

With reference to your exchange concerning possible redundancy in the phrase “benevolent compassion,” I thought you might be interested in an earlier exchange between a distinguished journalist (certainly no redundancy there) and a distinguished Supreme Court Justice (no redundancy even there) concerning a possible redundancy—and one particularly close to home (or the office) for Justice Scalia.

In 1935 Herbert Bayard Swope wrote to Chief Justice Hughes, complaining about the legend “Equal Justice Under Law” on the new Supreme Court building. He accused Hughes of “having permitted tautology, verbosity, and redundancy, each of which is an abomination in good usage.” (I’m struggling to determine whether this passage violated his own rules.) Hughes wrote back on February 4:

The letters are in volume 5B of the Hughes papers, in the Library of Congress; the exchange is reported in Merlo Pusey’s biography of Hughes.

I wonder whether Hughes was correct under Justice Scalia’s test. Equality in some sense is a characteristic that justice always possesses—that, at any rate, was Hughes’s point—but at least arguably it is not “the distinctive characteristic that [justice] conveys.” That strikes me as a close question, though. Certainly, the standard-of-justice icon, which has generated some scholarly interest, suggests that impartiality is in fact “[t]he essence of [justice].” I confess that I have difficulty applying this essentialist standard, which reminds me somewhat of the question whether walking is essential to golf.

Richard D. Friedman

University of Michigan Law School

Ann Arbor, Michigan

While discussing your thrusts and parries with Justice Scalia, both of you committed a no-no when you misused the word
differentiate.
Many style books warn about using
differentiate
instead of
distinguish.
One differentiates when doing calculus, a physician uses a differential diagnosis when comparing similar diseases, and an electronic circuit can be made to differentiate a train of pulses. Please cease and desist!