My deepest sympathies to the families in Tucson. What a horrible tragedy.
While the event itself isn't word related, one of the theories is. I hadn't heard of David Wynn Miller's theory of mind control and brainwashing by controlling their grammar. Apparently this mentally ill gunman espoused to this theory. Here is Miller's Web site, which is a hard read, partly because of the capital letters: Link
I am not sure how you can control minds with grammar, but there is some explanation on this site: Link:
quote:
Miller has argued to a small but avid following that the government launched a control program by writing citizens' names in capital letters on their birth certificates, and that if colons and hyphens are added to people's names in a certain way, they become a "prepositional phrase" no longer subject to taxation.
Does anyone know anything more about this theory? Of course I know it's bogus, but I'd like to understand it more.
Mark Liberman on Language Log doesn't agree that he had necessarily read Miller's ravings:
quote:
I'm skeptical about this — so far I haven't seen any connection more specific than the fact that both relate to language and both are ravings; but I don't have a lot of patience for reading this sort of thing.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Loughner: "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."
Miller: "I am the judge in 1988 who wrote the mathematical interface on all 5,000 languages proving that language is a linear equation in algebra certifying that all words have 900 definitions through this mathematical algebraic formula and over the course of the past 21 years have developed an accuracy level in the syntaxing of language sentence structure to prove the correct sentence structure communication syntax language is required in a court system."
They're both grammatical sentences, but decidedly weird and mostly meaningless. There's some strange word choice, e.g., implying for applying, brainwash as a noun, syntax as a verb, etc. Some mentally ill people are obsessed with mind control. (Recently in a small town in my old home county, public wifi was defeated because enough people though it was a government plot to institute mind control and others thought that the radio waves were a health issue.) As one of the commenters said, this is Sapir-Whorf in the extreme.
The only way to "understand" this kind of ranting is to learn about mental illness, which is what it is.
I agree about Loughner; I think we all do. Not sure about Miller. He's weird and his theory is incomprehensible, but does that mean he is mentally ill? First off, I read some pretty incomprehensible theories before, including a nursing one I've posted here from time to time. You've all agreed. She, and her followers clearly are not mentally ill. But secondly, it's my theory that Miller knows absolutely what he's doing, and he's making fun of the establishment in doing so. He complains about all caps in birth certificates, and yet his Web site is in all caps, making it hard to read.
Check out this article about him, and by all means visit his website (see his "scams" section, since it seems to be the only section which is comprehensible) and decide if he isn't totally nuts.
I thought the Baron article was just excellent. This sentence grabbed me:
quote:
As further evidence that Loughner’s own grasp both of grammar and of reality is tenuous, he is reported to have asked Rep. Gabrielle Giffords the truly bizarre question, “What is government if words have no meaning?” three years before he put a bullet through the left side of her brain, the part that controls language.
Until reading this, I hadn't thought at all about the gunshot being in the part of her brain that controls language...when he believes that politicians control language with grammar. That is really eerie. I can only guess it was a coincidence, but who knows. In the news this morning I heard that she is not talking yet.
