DJT nearly (or barely?) escaped death . . .
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Dan Halpern, "Trump’s charm offensive in the Bronx", The Economist 5/29/2024:
As the former president glowered and dozed through his criminal trial a few miles south in lower Manhattan, the Trump campaign emails had been growing weirder and weirder. Their subject lines were an anthology of cryptic clickbait. “I stormed out of court!” read one (he didn’t). “I nearly escaped death,” said another (if he had, then grammatically speaking he would be dead, which he pretty clearly wasn’t).
Linguistic analysis of "proximatives" (or "approximatives") like English nearly, almost, barely, …. has been going on for a while. There's a clear and interesting account of one relevant aspect in Larry Horn's 2017 chapter "Almost et al.: Scalar Adverbs Revisited" (unfortunately behind a stiff paywall):
The division of labor between semantic and pragmatic aspects of the almost, barely, and other proximatives has been a bone of contention ever since Sadock’s (1981) proposal that a almost ’d is true if a in fact ’d: Chris almost died entails that Chris approached dying while merely conversationally implicating that Chris didn’t die. Given that barely = almost not , Dana barely survived would likewise on the same account implicate, not entail, that Dana in fact survived. While additional support has been marshaled for this “radical pragmatic” line, one persistent problem acknowledged by Sadock and not dispelled since is the resistance of the almost → not implication to cancelation. New evidence for and against Sadock’s approach and competing analyses of the proximatives is considered and a solution presented.
Presumably the author of the Trump campaign email was subject to the human tendency to jump to a contextually plausible interpretation, as often seen in misnegations and inversions of scalar implicatures (as in this post).
The obligatory screenshot (of the paragraph in The Economist's article):
[h/t Philip Taylor]
Update — Note that most mass-media reporting on the "nearly escaped death" claim interprets it, in effect, as "barely escaped death"…
Andrew Usher said,
June 2, 2024 @ 9:24 am
Yes, this is surely related to misnegation, but starting with 'nearly' almost forces it, as there's no idiomatic way to say the opposite (is there?), "I nearly escaped surviving" (or _avoided_) sounds wrong. "I _narrowly_ escaped death" would be the best rephrasing.
Jonathan Smith said,
June 2, 2024 @ 9:26 am
Cf. "just about" — UK football/soccer commentators favor "S/he's just about kept [the ball] out of [e.g. the goal]", which means they did (keep the ball out), but here in US would mean they didn't. "Barely" would work… note include perfect tense for full UK effect :D
Jason M said,
June 2, 2024 @ 10:28 am
@Jonathan Smith I’m glad you brought that up. I have been watching British announcers for decades, yet have never got used to that locution (whereas I don’t mind British “have got” vs American “have gotten”!). In fact, I now hear some American announcers using the same — to my ears — upside-down ”just about”ism. I did look up “just about” use in the sense of “barely” and saw it was not universal across British English speakers, though it clearly is among British footy announcers.
Xtifr said,
June 2, 2024 @ 3:42 pm
@Andrew Usher: Starting with "nearly", surely the idiomatic way to say the opposite would be: "I nearly died" or "I nearly got killed/murdered/assassinated".
Charles in Toronto said,
June 2, 2024 @ 5:51 pm
I seem to remember reading about a UK/US difference in one of the constructions similar to this, but I just can't remember exactly which one. I.e. a phrase that would one one side of the pond imply "I did not get on the train" but on the other side would imply "I did get on the train".
Josh R. said,
June 2, 2024 @ 6:38 pm
I suspect the writer of the emails was attempting to say, "I narrowly escaped death."
JPL said,
June 2, 2024 @ 10:23 pm
OP: "Note that most mass-media reporting on the "nearly escaped death" claim interprets it, in effect, as "barely escaped death""…
But, apart from the conventional practice of charitably giving strange constructions a normal sense (e.g., the person escaped a situation that could have resulted in death), if somebody accurately stated. "I barely escaped death", they would be describing the experience of being miraculously brought back to life, e.g., by doctors.
It's a very funny example; but what is it exactly that makes it so funny? There's more to it than "nearly/barely" (etc.); there's also "escape/avoid/achieve" (etc.) and "death/nirvana" (etc.), although maybe better examples could be found, as well as notions such as negation, inclusion/exclusion, directionality and no doubt others.
Philip Taylor said,
June 3, 2024 @ 3:11 am
Charles (in Toronto) — are you perhaps thinking of <Br.E> "I couldn’t care less" v. <Am.E>" I could care less" ?
KevinM said,
June 3, 2024 @ 9:38 am
This could be an extension or misapplication of the idiom "near miss," which sometimes causes confusion because to "nearly miss" implies a hit. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/near-miss-near-hit-word-history-usage
Philip Taylor said,
June 3, 2024 @ 12:19 pm
Well, I suppose that if Thelonious Trump manages to avoid receiving a prison sentence (as seems widely thought probable), he will then Twxxt that he “nearly escaped prison” …
Philip Taylor said,
June 3, 2024 @ 12:26 pm
" […] Felonious Trump […]" — fingers too fast for rapidly ageing brain …
Andrew Usher said,
June 4, 2024 @ 7:30 am
Xtifr:
Yes, of course. I, like the writer, was fixated on the 'escaped' concept. I thought we were assuming it wasn't Trump himself, but the stories seem to imply it was. Anyway, it doesn't seem impossible among American accents to mishear 'narrowly' as 'nearly'.
Jonathan Smith said,
June 4, 2024 @ 9:07 am
Famously and probably discussed on here many times, interpretation of Mandarin "chadiar verbed" and "chadiar didn't verb" involves a pragmatic component such that the two are different when the result is desired (e.g., "almost won" vs. "almost didn't win" have the expected meanings) but the same when the result is undesired (e.g., "almost lost" and "almost didn't lose" both = didn't lose but it was close.)