Greg the linguist

 Greg the linguist

      The literary history of one Gregory Paul Sheehy is not one on pages (except these electronic pages) but it is an oral history. He was a man who loved the English language and knew how to tell a story. Like his old man he often took the long way around with every possible detail included in a description of an event he experienced. He did not leave reams of poetry or commentary behind and as noted before he never came within a La Crescenta mile of any social media. He did involve his fine brain in a cultural life that included hours and hours of Public Radio, PBS, Meet the Press and even back to Walter Cronkhite's Twentrieth Century. He could whistle the theme of the program at a moments notice. BTW "The Twentieth Century" ceased production before Greg reached high school so that gives you an idea of why he was a special kind of cat. His true hero was not a sports star but Bob Edwards, host of "Morning Edition." While he did not  pen a lot of prose he was quick to correct those who abused the language and that included commentators and so-called pundits who "talked out of their ass" as the fine fellow would say. It drove him crazy that  NPR's  Robert Seigel called a precious form of literary art "poyems" and once identified the great mystery author as Dash-sheel Hammet. Several times I sat with the man in his leather throne at  Francis when his face would redden and he would shout "it's poems god damnit!" So today I found myself reminded ot my dear linguist pal when a sports commentator referred to a subject as "begging the quetion." Greg ranted over the constant misuse of the phrase and explained it to me many times why the so-called experts were wrong. In his opinion the saying means "to ignore a question or issue by assuming it has been answered or settled." Beg the question is a phrase from formal logic. We have Aristotle to thank for it—or, actually, an anonymous 16th century translator who took Aristotle's phrase petitio principii and rendered it in English as "beg the question." A better translation would have been "assume the conclusion," As in a sentence "If left to themselves, children will naturally do the right thing because people are intrinsically good." "This statement tries to prove that children will naturally do the right thing by using the unproven assertion that people are intrinsically good. That assertion is problematic because it is little more than a broader version of the thing that is being proven." It may be a losing battle as the phrase has become "to cause someone to ask a specified question as a reaction or response" But not in Greg's mind...god damnit

                                                                  Siegel   

                                                                Edwards