cannot underscore

[blatv...@yahoo.com]

Secretary of State Clinton was quoted today as saying "I think that we
can not underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to
the state of Pakistan". When I first read the quote, I paused and
thought that what she meant to say was "cannot underscore enough". I
thought "Surely if something cannot be underscored, it is not
important. If it can't be underscored MORE, or ENOUGH, that's a
different matter." But then I see plenty of unrelated quotes on the
net that use the phrase "cannot underscore the importance", "cannot
emphasize the importance" and "cannot stress the importance". Is this
considered correct usage, to leave out any qualifying word or phrase
when the intended meaning is not the same as the literal meaning? Or
perhaps acceptable in speech but less so in writing? Could it be
called idiomatic, with the "enough", or "more emphatically", or some
such meaning from the context automatically understood? Should these
words "underscore", "emphasize" and "stress" have these usages
included in their dictionary definitions?

Bill

[Mark Brader]

"Bill":

> Secretary of State Clinton was quoted today as saying "I think that we
> can not underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to
> the state of Pakistan". When I first read the quote, I paused and
> thought that what she meant to say was "cannot underscore enough".

Either that or she meant "cannot underrate" or "must not underrate",
and said half of one thing and half of the other.

> But then I see plenty of unrelated quotes on the
> net that use the phrase "cannot underscore the importance", "cannot
> emphasize the importance" and "cannot stress the importance". Is this

> considered correct usage...

It seems more likely to me that people get to the end of the sentence
and forget that they've omitted the key adverb.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "I can't tell from this... whether you're
m...@vex.net | a wise man or a wise guy." --Ted Schuerzinger

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

blatv...@yahoo.com writes:

I suspect that what you're seeing is interference between "cannot
underscore too strongly" (or the like) and "cannot understate".

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A little government and a little luck
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |are necessary in life, but only a
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |fool trusts either of them.
| P.J. O'Rourke
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Chuck Riggs]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:57:19 -0700 (PDT), blatv...@yahoo.com wrote:

>Secretary of State Clinton was quoted today as saying "I think that we
>can not underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to
>the state of Pakistan". When I first read the quote, I paused and
>thought that what she meant to say was "cannot underscore enough".

<snip>

That's right. Someone left out that essential "enough", as can be seen
from this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8013677.stm
--

Regards,

Chuck Riggs,
who speaks AmE,lives near Dublin, Ireland
and usually spells in BrE

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Chuck Riggs <chr...@eircom.net> writes:

> On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:57:19 -0700 (PDT), blatv...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>Secretary of State Clinton was quoted today as saying "I think that
>>we can not underscore the seriousness of the existential threat
>>posed to the state of Pakistan". When I first read the quote, I
>>paused and thought that what she meant to say was "cannot underscore
>>enough".
>
> <snip>
>
> That's right. Someone left out that essential "enough", as can be
> seen from this:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8013677.stm

Actually listening to her, I suspect that she started out the sentence
expecting to put it after the object, but as she kept adding to the
object, it got so long and heavy that (1) she forgot and (2) listeners
wouldn't have been able to attach it back to the "underscore" at the
beginning of the sentence. The sentence is

I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the
existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the coninuing
advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a
loosely-confederated of terrorists and others who are seeking the
overthrow of the Pakistani state, which is, as we all know, a
nuclear-armed state.

That's just too many levels of what linguists call "center
embedding". Or in Computer Science terms, "stack overflow".

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |"It makes you wonder if there is
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |anything to astrology after all."
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |
|"Oh, there is," said Susan.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |"Delusion, wishful thinking and
(650)857-7572 |gullibility."

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[blatv...@yahoo.com]

Thanks to all for the comments. It apparently is a mistake, as I
suspected, but one that is easy to make. I might do the same thing
myself if I was nervous, which I usually am when speaking to a group.

Bill