MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCES 
 
 
 
 
 

BUSHISMS: IILITERACY AS A TYPE OF POLYSEMY.

Course paper 
 
 
 

Specialty: 050207 – Translator Professional

Discipline: basic theory of the studied language 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Almaty, 2009 

CONTENTS 

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………....3

I. Illiteracy due to the fact of polysemy. Bushisms from a linguistic view ……....5

1.1. A note on bushisms of all times……………………………………………...6

1.2. Bushisms from the inside view ……………………………………………...6

1.3. Bushisms have a common touch …………………………………………….9

1.4. Richard Thompson’s poem about bushisms ………………………………...10

1.5. Other related linguistic elements: …………………………………………...12

- Mondegreens;

- Spoonerisms;

- Damaging quotation;

- Eggcorn;

- Freudian slip.

II. The analysis of the bushisms’ phenomenon ………………………………….20

2.1. Beyond bushisms…………………………………………………………….22

2.2. Various definitions ………………………………………………………….22 

2.3. Reasons ……………………………………………………………………...23

2.4. Bushisms: best moments …………………………………………………....27

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………30

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..31 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

INTRODUCTION 

  Being able to read and write is an important skill nowadays. But very often this is not enough to be called literate. Due to illiteracy of people who for various reasons are unable to understand what they read, cannot write well enough, or cannot use the words in their speech properly – there are situations of misunderstanding and even conflicts.

  This occurs for several reasons.  One of the main reason is the usage of polysemantic words, in linguistics these words  are related to polysemy. Improper usage of polysemantic words in the context represents the serious difficulties in communication and information transfer.  Illiteracy in this sphere is connected with a term “Bushisms”.

       The term “Bushisms” has become widely recognized, partly due to book titles and web sites dedicated to the American President G.W. Bush’s quotations. Bushism can also describe the doctrine of the George W. Bush administration connected with  his peculiar speeches that are widely discussed by people of all over the world. All of the above information proves the actuality of this problem.

       At the same time, the novelty of the current research work is in identifying the causes of the Bushisms’ origin and comparing them with other similar linguistic types of illiteracy.

The basic method of the research work  is a descriptive analysis of Bushisms’origin.

The main purpose of my course paper is to demonstrate and prove that Bushisms which lead to illiteracy, represent the fact of linguistic phenomena. 
 
 
 

  Accordingly the main objectives of my research work  are as follows:

1. Show the connection between illiteracy and polysemy and their relation the bushisms’ origin.
2. Give the descriptive analysis of the bushisms’ phenomenon.

  In this work I’ve studied the information from such authors as Jacob Weisberg, Molly Ivins and Donald Davidson. I’ve chosen Jacob Weisberg's Books as a main source of the course paper. In his book “Deluxe Election Edition Bushisms” Jacob Weisberg describes the Bush era, that has been a special time  for the deficit (back, and larger than ever), for the countries formerly known as our allies, and for the English language. With new Bushisms coming fast and furious in this election season, ace Bushism editor Jacob Weisberg offers a must-read compendium and "explanation" of the first term.

  The structure of the course paper: contents, introduction, two main chapters, conclusion, bibliography and also a presentation as the appendix. Chapter one is called: Illiteracy due to the fact of polysemy; Bushisms from a linguistic view. Chapter two is called: the analyses of the Bushisms’ phenomenon. In addition, these chapters include a number of paragraphs that also contain the necessary information about Bushisms’ and other related linguistic elements.  
 
 
 
 
 

I. ILLITERACY DUE TO THE FACT OF POLYSEMY. BUSHISMS FROM A LINGUISTIC VIEW.

  It is known, that polysemy is the fact that some words have a network of different but related meanings.  For the last two decades polysemy has also been at the centre of attention of linguistics research, where problems of word senses and word sense disambiguation are vividly discussed. Linguistics studies such phenomenon as illiteracy.

    Polysemy comes from Latin “polysemia”, which comes from Greek “polusemous” poly (many) + sema (sign) giving us a linguistic term, "having many meanings" or multiple meanings. The words “polysemy” and “polysemous” are defined as "having or characterized by many meanings; the existence of several meanings for a single word or phrase". ¹ As said earlier, these terms refer to "words" or other "items of language with two or more senses". Such senses may be more or less distant from one another, it is generally agreed that in each case only one word is being discussed, not two that happen to have the same form. 

  Improper usage, biased or distorted understanding of the information indicates the speaker's illiteracy and leads to conflicts and misunderstandings. Due to many reasons why illiteracy is still exists, in linguistics there are many sections that studying the phenomenon of polysemy and related illiteracy. Sections of linguistics study the problem of illiteracy, related to the polysemy of words, at present day these sections include such linguistic phenomena as: malapropism, neologism, ambiguity, damaging quotation, spoonerism, eggcorn and also bushism, which became a relatively recent type of verbal illiteracy. The orientation of this course paper is to describe the linguistic problem of bushims’ phenomenon while analyzing the examples of some Bush’s specific statements. It is necessary to study the causes and consequences of this phenomenon to avoid repetition of this kind of mistakes in the future.

1.1. A NOTE ON BUSHISMS OF ALL TIMES

  Other presidents have shared the same perception of linguistic ineptitude, including Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry S. Truman. Though Jackson was considered the ultimate back-county rube, he oversaw the fall of the aristocracy and the rise of the common man; Lincoln, thought to be a Bible-spouting baboon, is now considered one of the greatest leaders the world has ever produced; and Truman, the uneducated haberdasher, laid the basic political foundation of the Post-Modern world, which is only now yielding to, well, the post Post-Modern world (whatever that may be). This is not to say that linguistic ineptness invariably leads to greatness. History shows us that we’ve had our fill of verbally challenged chief executives who were also severely overtaxed by the burdens of office and have now fallen most ungraciously into the various dustbins of failed expectations. And then there was Warren G. Harding. He is said to have scandalously coined the term ‘hospitalization’ in the 1920s. A quick Google search shows that the word now appears on the web more than 8 million times. Well done, Warren! Not a bad legacy for a third-rate president. Like the ‘Yogi-isms’ of Baseball Hall of Famer Lawrence P. “Yogi” Berra, some of Bush’s most famous Bushisms can be found in literature many years before he supposedly coined them. ‘Resignate’ dates to the 18th century, and ‘Grecian’ as a reference to things Greek was the preferred way to describe those inhabiting the Greek Isles from the 18th century onward. Even ‘Misunderestimate’ can be found in 1960’s literature. ²

1.2. BUSHISMS FROM THE INSIDE VIEW

  "I’m more interacting with people," he said. So go the famous words of George W. Bush, president of the United States The list goes on. Most people in America and many across the world have observed the peculiar speech of President Bush. There are numerous terms for it: "Bushisms," "Bushlexis," "the Bush Mouth Disease." "It’s something we all do, some more than others," said Alan Cienki,³ associate professor of linguistics. "Some of us do it more under pressure, in spur-of-the-moment situations. Being a world leader definitely puts you in that high-pressure category." Cienki has studied Bush’s speech patterns and presented a lecture titled, "‘They Misunder-estimated Me’: Insights About ‘Bushisms’ From the Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics," Wednesday, Oct. 8, in Winship Ballroom. With published books and even websites dedicated to chronicling every presidential misspeak, what now exists is a rare set of linguistic data derived from one person over a number of years. So why do professors like Cienki study it? For one, Bushisms are not nonsense; most people understand what was intended, and such speech is not unique to Bush. There are a number of ways people warp speech, Cienki said, whether it’s by blending two words to make one, putting a word in the wrong context or using the wrong verb tense. By analyzing the linguistic data that exists from Bush’s documented speech patterns, linguistics professionals like Cienki now have a number of examples from which they can study typical types of verbal blunders.

  Bushisms typically involve the blending of words. For example, Bush once used the term "revengeful," a combination of "revenge" and "vengeful." Because language evolves over time, combining two words to make a new word is a common approach, linguistically. For instance, Cienki said, the word "smog" is derived from "fog" and "smoke." Other times people combine not two words but two phrases. In reference to his brother, Bush called Jeb the "great governor of Texas." While he meant "great governor of Florida," he was combining "great state of Texas" with "governor of Florida." Another time he said, "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family," fusing "put food on your table" with "provide food for your family." Such speech may be strange or incorrect, but Cienki said "blends are a mechanism of creativity and lexical innovation." People also often substitute more common words for the less common, resulting in grammatical error. Bush has used "subscribe" in place of "ascribe" and "tenants" in place of "tenets." Another time he said, "I’m very gracious and humbled," rather than "grateful."

  Then there is Cienki’s favorite Bushism, the so-called "double Bushism:" "I’ve coined new words, like ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘Hispanically.’" Although "Hispanically" is not a word, "misunderstanding" is. In this example, Cienki said, Bush overcompensated; while trying to refer to his use of "misunderestimating," he corrected himself and deferred to a proper word. Because these examples of Bush’s speech patterns are typically demonstrated in full view of the public, they often are scrutinized, but Cienki said everyone does it from time to time. Why we do it and why some of us do it more than others are questions still left to be answered, he added.

1.3. BUSHISMS HAVE A COMMON TOUCH

   Lincoln will forever be remembered for Gettysburg, though his address was dismissed at the time as underwhelmingly ordinary. John Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" still brings a lump to the throat. Then there's brother Robert's "Some men see things as they are and say 'why'. I dream things that never were and say 'why not." Famous words are no doubt shaped and vetted a thousandfold before being released.

  George Bush will also go down in history for his language. Two days before last week's US election, I keyed "Bushism" into Google and scored 49,600 hits. A "Bushism" is a blanket term for any of GWB's innovative, aberrant or "apparently fatuous" remarks. I predict that it will share the destiny of other eponyms - such as hoover, bandaid, cardigan, sandwich, malapropism - that started out as proper nouns, eventually losing their capitals as they broadened their sphere of influence.

  Forensic linguists and speech pathologists may coin a general term - perhaps "Bush's syndrome", Bushitis or Bushlexia - for spoken language dysfluencies. But if we must lump them all together (a bit linguistically lazy in my view), then let's go for a "spectrum", rather than a "syndrome". Some Bushisms entail a confusion of words. "We cannot let terrorists hold this nation hostile." This one, while unforgivable, is perhaps understandable: they share their opening "hos"; they're both bi-syllabic, with a stressed first syllable. Both share a semantic field (shall we call it "terror discourse"?) and often rub shoulders in the same sentence.

  Bush's grammar could do with a dusting. Especially his recurring problem with noun-verb concord ("literacy level are appalling"). On the other hand, his pronunciation gaffes (for example, urging nations to "lower terriers and barras") may be less strident were his every public uttered word not immediately transcribed and beamed around the world. 

1.4. RICHARD THOMPSON’S POEM ABOUT BUSHISMS 

  Bushisms are any of a number of peculiar words

, phrase

s, pronunciation

s, malapropism

s, semantic or linguistic errors, and gaffes that have occurred in the public speaking of United States President 

George W. Bush 

and, before that, of his father George H. W. Bush

. The term, a neologism

, has become part of popular folklore, and is the basis of a number of websites and published books. It is often used to caricature  

the two presidents. Common characteristics include malapropism

s, the creation of neologism

s, and spoonerism

s. Some columnists – including the late Molly Ivins

, co-author of a book of Bushisms⁴ – have suggested that Bush may have difficulty speaking "Washington  

English", and that he may be trying to cover his dialect  

by over-emphasizing words. Some have hypothesized that Bush is not familiar with some of the words that he feels he must use as president. Bush's misuse of the English language has spawned dozens of books that document the phenomenon. The majority are written by Slate

Magazine editor Jacob Weisberg

. The first, Bushisms, was released there in 2002. The Bushism books have been received well around the world, with editions released in Germany

, France

, and Italy 

landing on best seller lists. A poem entitled “Make the Pie Higher”, composed entirely of Bushisms, was compiled by high school English teacher Dirk Schulze under the pseudonym of "Richard Thompson", as an example of a found poem  

for his students. This following poem is composed entirely of actual quotes from George W. Bush:

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over. 
This is still a dangerous world. 
It's a world of madmen 
And uncertainty 
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked 
Is our children learning? 
Will the highways of the internet 
Become more few? 
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me. 
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity. 
I know that the human being and the fish 
Can coexist.

Families is where our nation finds hope 
Where our wings take dream. 
Put food on your family! 
Knock down the tollbooth! 
Vulcanize society! 
Make the pie higher! 
Make the pie higher!

  Here you can see the related linguistic elements: Eggcorn, Malapropism and Yogiism. These are the another linguistic elements which like the bushisms lead to illiteracy. It is important to know how to distinguished them and avoid in one’s speech in future. The following paragraph describes these linguistics types of language illiteracy.   
 

1.5. OTHER RELATED LINGUISTIC ELEMENTS

MALAPROPISM

  It is verbal blunder in which one word is replaced by another similar in sound but different in meaning. Although William Shakespeare had used the device for comic effect, the term derives from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s character Mrs. Malaprop, in his play The Rivals (1775). Her name is taken from the term malapropos (French: “inappropriate”) and is typical of Sheridan’s practice of concocting names to indicate the essence of a character. Thinking of the geography of contiguous countries, she spoke of the “geometry” of “contagious countries,” and hoped that her daughter might “reprehend” the true meaning of what she is saying. She regretted that her “affluence” over her niece was very small. So, the definition is: Absurd or humorous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound. Here are some examples and observations:

   A malapropism does not have to be amusing or surprising. It does not have to be based on a cliché and of course it does not have to be intentional. There need be no play on words, no hint of deliberate pun. ("Why, murder's the matter! slaughter's the matter! killing's the matter! But he can tell you the  
perpendiculars. (Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan's The Rivals)

• "He is the very pineapple of politeness." (Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan's The Rivals)
• "A witness shall not bear falsies against thy neighbor." (Archie Bunker in All in the Family)
• "groin-acologist" for "gynecologist" (Archie Bunker in All in the Family)
• "Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child." (Dan Quayle)
• "Why not? Play captains against each other, create a little dysentery in the ranks."  (Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos)
• "That's another thing. I don't want to hear anymore how it was in your day. From now on, keep your antidotes to local color, like Dynoflow or the McGuire Sisters." (Tony Soprano to "Feech" La Manna in The Sopranos)
• "However, they delineate-quotas, I think, vulcanize society." (George W. Bush)
• "There's no stigmata connected with going to a shrink." 
  (Little Carmine in The Sopranos)
• "Oftentimes, we live in a processed world, you know, people focus on the process and not results." (George W. Bush) ⁵

MONDEGREENS

  Mondegreens are in a sense the opposite of malapropisms; they result from something being misheard rather than missaid. Here's a few misheard phrases and song lyrics (the first three are well-known examples):

• "Excuse me while I kiss this guy." 
   "Excuse me while I kiss the sky." 
    Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix
• "There's a bathroom on the right." 
   "There's a bad moon on the rise." 
    Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater
• "The girl with colitis goes by." 
   "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes." 
    Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, The Beatles
• "Crimean River." 
   "Cry Me a River." 
    Cry Me a River, Julie London
• "Bring me an iron lung." 
   Bring me a higher love." 
   Higher Love, Steve Winwood
• "Mama don't take my clothes 'n' throw 'em away." 
   Mama don't take my Kodachrome away." 
   Kodachrome, Paul Simon
• "You make the best homemade stew around." 
   "You make the best of what's still around." 
    When The World Is Running Down, The Police
• "Very close veins." 
  "Varicose veins."
• "Paper View TV." 
  "Pay-per-view TV."

SPOONERISMS

  Spoonerisms are words or phrases in which letters or syllables get swapped. This often happens accidentally in slips of the tongue (or tips of the slung as Spoonerisms are often affectionately called!):

• Tease my ears (Ease my tears)
• A lack of pies (A pack of lies)
• It's roaring with pain (It's pouring with rain)
• Wave the sails (Save the whales)

The word spoonerism comes from William Archibald Spooner who was famous for making these verbal slips. Here is a selection of the funniest:

• Cat flap (Flat cap)
• Bad salad (Sad ballad)
• Soap in your hole (Hope in your soul)
• Mean as custard (Keen as mustard)
• Plaster man (Master plan)
• Pleating and humming (Heating and plumbing)
• Trim your snow tail (Trim your toe nails)
• Birthington's washday (Washington's Birthday)
• Trail snacks (Snail tracks)
• Bottle in front of me (Frontal Lobotomy)
• Sale of two titties (Tale of two cities)
• Flock of bats (Block of flats)
• Chewing the doors (Doing the chores)

DAMAGING QUOTATION

  A damaging quotation is a short utterance by a public figure used by opponents as a discrediting tactic. These utterances are often, but not always, taken out of context or otherwise changed to distort their original meaning. These quotes are compiled into books or posted on the internet and are repeated in other contexts such as in talk radio or in the United States by stand-up comedians in late-night television monologues. The publication of these quotes is justified as a necessary part of maintaining an informed citizenry. In cases where the quote in question is taken widely out of context it can be difficult for a candidate to find recourse, even though it is very easy to check the accuracy and the context of a quote by using internet resources (such as search engines); in popular jargon, the quotation (especially if humorous) can grow into a meme. ⁶

   Categories of damaging quotations: There are various common categories of quotes: malapropisms or grammatical errors, exaggerations about past achievements, lack of conviction, consorting with the enemy, moral turpitude, indifference towards victims of crime, etc.

  In the case of malapropisms, it is a logical fallacy to conclude that the entire argument of whoever made the utterance is incorrect. Yet it has become common in partisan argument in the United States. For instance: former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN (March 9, 1999) stated "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." This has frequently been distorted by opponents to say that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet". Partisans have so often used this distorted quote to discredit him, so much so that Internet pioneer Vint Cerf (and others who participated in actually inventing the Internet) have made a point of noting Gore's support and the error of the discreditors.

  With the availability of inexpensive computers and the widespread use of the Internet, it has become easy for anyone to accumulate and distribute these quotation lists. Like the "Yogiisms" of baseball great Yogi Berra, or the Colemanballs collected by Private Eye, a damaging quotation purports to give insight into the thinking of the speaker, frequently a politician, or of the politicians or political groups that used it as means of attack. As such they belong to the colorful history of political satire.

EGGCORN

  In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but plausible in the same context ("old-timers' disease" for "Alzheimer's disease"). This is as opposed to a malapropism, where the substitution creates a nonsensical phrase. Classical malapropisms generally derive their comic effect from the fault of the user, whilst eggcorns are errors that exhibit creativity or logic. Eggcorns often involve replacing an unfamiliar, archaic, or obscure word with a more common or modern word ("baited breath" for "bated breath"). The term "eggcorn" was coined by Geoffrey Pullum in September 2003, in response to an article by Mark Liberman on the website Language Log, a blog for linguists. Liberman discussed the case of a woman who substitutes the phrase egg corn for the word acorn, arguing that the precise phenomenon lacked a name; Pullum suggested using "eggcorn" itself. While there are several similar classes of linguistic deviation which have been recognised for longer, Liberman argues that the original "egg corn" does not fit any of them:

• It is not a folk etymology: it is an error made by an individual, rather than an entire community over time.
• It is not a malapropism: egg corn and acorn are nearly homophonous in the dialect in question, while malapropisms feature only vaguely similar words.
• It is not a mondegreen: it is an error of misinterpretation from common speech rather than from a lyric or similar recitation, and also does not acquire an entirely new meaning.

Examples:

• for all intensive purposes instead of for all intents and purposes
• hone in instead of home in
• just desserts instead of just deserts
• old timers' disease instead of Alzheimer's disease
• on tenderhooks instead of on tenterhooks
• on the spurt of the moment instead of on the spur of the moment
• once and a while instead of once in a while
• pot marks instead of pockmarks
• preying mantis instead of praying mantis
• sore grapes instead of sour grapes
• splashy instead of plashy
• tow the line instead of toe the line
• wanton to do instead of wont to do

FREUDIAN SLIP

   A Freudian slip, or parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is believed to be caused by the unconscious mind. Some errors, such as a man accidentally calling his wife by the name of another woman, seem to represent relatively clear cases of Freudian slips. In other cases, the error might appear to be trivial or bizarre, but may show some deeper meaning on analysis. As a common pun goes, "A Freudian slip is when you mean one thing, but you say your mother." A Freudian slip is not limited to a slip of the tongue, or to sexual desires. It can extend to our word perception where we might read a word incorrectly because of our fixations. These slips are semi-conscious, which is to say that these thoughts are consciously repressed and then unconsciously released. This is unlike true Freudian repression, which is the unconscious act of making something conscious. The Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who described the phenomenon he called Fehlleistung (literally meaning "faulty action" or "misperformance" in German), but termed as parapraxis (from the Greek meaning "another action" in English). In his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud gives several examples of seemingly trivial, bizarre or nonsensical Freudian slips. The analysis is often quite lengthy and complex, as was the case with many of the dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams. Popularisation of the term has diluted its technical meaning in some contexts to include any slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. It is a more deeply repressed set of thoughts. Freud believed that verbal slips come from repressed desires. However, cognitive psychologists would counter that slips can represent a sequencing conflict in grammar production. Slips may be due to cognitive underspecification that can take a variety of forms – inattention, incomplete sense data or insufficient knowledge. Secondly, they may be due to the existence of some locally appropriate response pattern that is strongly primed by its prior usage, recent activation or emotional change or by the situation calling conditions. Some sentences are just susceptible to the process of banalisation: the replacement of archaic or unusual expressions with forms that are in more common use. In other words, the errors were due to strong habit substitution. Examples:  kurger bing - Burger King; geet oodies - eat goodies; dood ghinner - good dinner. ⁷ 

  Summing up the chapter, it should be noted that all these phenomena, as well as bushisms, is now deeply studied. Scientists develop special methods to eliminate illiteracy in the various fields of communication. Before searching the techniques to eliminate illiteracy, it is necessary to clarify the main cause of the bushisms existence, to understand the subtleties of language that in the next chapter should be analyzed with the help of using replicas of Bush, who is actually the main object whose name is directly related with a new notion in linguistics. 
 
 
 
 
 

II. THE ANALYSIS OF THE BUSHISMS’ PHENOMENON.

  After eight long years, it’s time to say goodbye to President Bush and ponder the legacy he leaves us. Forget the two wars, a trillion-dollar debt, an economy in shambles, Katrina, and an international image that’s a PR nightmare. Number 43 leaves behind a cavalcade of so-called Bushisms that ought to keep us laughing through our tears. Let’s start with his (mis)pronunciation of the word nuclear, which he invariably mispronounced as “nucular”. Then there’s his mangled pronoun usage: “You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” - Yup, he said it, way back in 2001 during a speech in Tennessee. Six years later, his grammar was still failing when he spoke about No Child Left Behind: “As yesterday’s positive report card shows, “childrens” do learn when standards are high and results are measured.” Whether you agree or not with Bush’s immigration policy, you’ve got to love this comment he made in 2005: “Those who enter the country illegally, violate the law.” Thanks for making that clear, Mr. President. Last June, he graced us with this classic example of a misplaced modifier: “I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.” Really? In the Oval Office? If those North Koreans had left the child and abducted Bush instead, they might have saved the rest of us a lot of trouble.⁸ Fortunately, the English language is more resilient than the US economy or surely after eight years of Bush’s leadership we would be suffering a linguistic recession as severe as the current economic crisis.

  In a recent speech, President Bush offered this insight into what some call the rhetorical situation: “The only thing I can tell you is that when I speak, I'm very conscience about the audiences that are listening to my words”. Apparently the president is so conscious of his "audiences" that he sometimes loses track of his words. As we note in choosing the correct word, the noun conscience means "the sense of what is right and wrong." The adjective conscious means "being aware." The president, we suspect, fully intended to be conscious. Of course, our intention is not to poke fun at the Communicator-in-Chief. Rather, as students of the language, we should express our gratitude. Over the course of his administration, George W. Bush has generously illustrated many principles of English grammar and usage. Here are just a few: ⁹

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." (February 21, 2001) Credit to Mr. Bush for attempting to use a singular pronoun to refer to a singular noun ("a child"), but both of the pronouns in this sentence really should be in the subjective case: not "he or her" but "he or she." (See Using the Different Forms of Pronouns.)

"When we get the facts, we'll share it with the American people."

(November 8, 2001). Ah, but those pronouns can be almost as slippery as the facts. Let's quietly change "it" to "them" to agree with the noun "facts." (The president may want to work on this Practice Exercise on Pronouns.)

"It's a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life."

(December 21, 2004) Indeed. Such needless repetition is called pleonasm.

"The goals of this country is to enhance prosperity and peace."

(Speaking at the White House Conference on Global Literacy, September 18, 2006) Presumably distracted by "this country" (the singular object of the preposition "of"), the president missed the plural subject, "goals." Our advice: use "are," not "is," and visit Correcting Errors in Subject-Verb Agreement).

"We've got pockets of persistent poverty in our society, which I refuse to declare defeat—I mean, I refuse to allow them to continue on. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is to encourage a faith-based initiative to spread its wings all across America, to be able to capture this great compassionate spirit." (March 18, 2002) Fortunately, the mixed metaphors here distract from the more serious breakdowns in syntax.

"And the question is, are we going to be facile enough to change with - will we be nimble enough; will we be able to deal with the circumstances on the ground? And the answer is, yes, we will." (July 25, 2006) "Columbia carried in its payroll classroom experiments from some of our students in America." 
(February 11, 2003) "Projection"? "commiserate"? "facile"? "payroll"? Not since Mrs. Malaprop herself have we witnessed such a master of malapropism. So thank you, President Bush, for expanding the range of the English language and for helping America to become what you once described as "a literate country and a hopefuller country."