An Interesting Slip?

I had wanted to make this blog post before announcing our new discussion board "Team Truther," but I did not get to it. Please read the post below this one as well, if you have not - on the announcing of our new board.

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In the last 2-3 days, there have been two comments made by players in this drama to press that have been noticed as - perhaps - being indicative of what we believe the "real story," may be, specifically that Bristol Palin is the mother of both Trig Palin and Tripp Johnston.

One comment, I believe, is NOT significant, but the other may be. First, let's talk about Levi's comment, as quoted in the Daily Beast, that his "boys" were going to be "so mad" when they saw the new clothing he'd acquired in Los Angeles. While it's easy to jump on this, and say, "Boys! He said 'boys'!", I believe that in this context Levi is referring to "male friends." My daughters frequently say that they are doing somthing with "my girls," to mean that they are socializing that evening with an all-female group. (Not large groups of granddaughters that I am somehow unaware of!) Infants and toddlers are not going to be "mad" about parental clothing choices, and I find the idea that he was talking about babies when he said this implausible.

The second comment, however, is, I think, far more worthy of comment. Buried deep in the transcript of Sarah Palin's interview with Wolf Blitzer is the following sentence, regarding the identity of the daughter that David Letterman's joke referred to: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of her young family.

"Family." That word choice is very very interesting.

Long Long Ago and Far Far Away, I was a student. I studied, not medicine or science (areas of endeavor that would ultimately have helped me in what I ended up doing professionally) but history and linguistics. Linguistics is, as we always tried to explain to other tipsy undergrads in bars, the study of "Language" with a capital "L" NOT languages, with a small "l." Although as an adult, I have never done anything with my linguistics degree professionally, nuances of language and grammar have always fascinated me.

To a native speaker of English, I believe "family" in this context implies more than one child. It's a collective noun that implies a group. Now, if someone says, "John and Sue are starting a family," we all know that this means they are having their first baby, because they are having the FIRST member of what might become a group.

But when someone is staying home, taking care of a "young family," this means children. If she had ONE baby, I believe a native English speaker would say, "at home with her baby." The natural way for Gov. Palin to have expressed this would have been: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of her new baby. Or even: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of Tripp.

Of course - this proves nothing. Those of us who doubt Palin's birth tale need no more proof; those who think she walks on water will find this - at best - an insignificant slip of the tongue, and at worst we'll get the typical comments: "Oh, I say 'family' all the time when I mean one child." Yeah, right. And I'm sure you say this to your friend who is nine months pregnant with her fifth eight pound child and who doesn't look pregnant at all! Amazing.

A nail in the coffin? Probably not. An interesting slip o' the tongue to file away? Definitely.