Yogi Berra was famous for such sayings as “People don’t go there any more. It’s too crowded.” Yogi’s pronouncements were short and sweet. the illogic was noticeable immediately. There is another form of verbal blunder called an Irish Bull, which is an expression that seems to make sense but after a moment’s reflection is seen to be wildly illogical.
The term Irish Bull harks back to Sir Boyle Roche, a member of the 18th-century Irish parliament who was given to earnest inanities. For example, there was his response to another member’s appeal for some measure because it would benefit posterity. “Why, Mr. Speaker, should we do anything for posterity?” Sir Boyle asked. “What has posterity done for us?”
Sir Boyle was a dual patriot, deeply attached to both England and Ireland. Indeed, he wanted “the two sisters to embrace like one brother.” But he feared that Irish grievances would never be addressed. Or as he put it: “So long as Ireland is silent on this question, England will be deaf to our entreaties.”
This master of the Irish bull was moved to tears by Ireland’s troubles. “The country is overflowing with absentee landlords,” he complained, and, what’s more, “The cup of Ireland’s misfortunes has been overflowing for centuries, and is not full yet.”
Consider this poetic passage from one of Sir Boyle’s orations: “All along the un-trodden path of the future, I can see the footprints of an unseen hand.”
Clarence Manion, a law school dean and minor ideologue in the 1950s earned a place among the immortals with this towering piece Irish Bull bloviation:
“There is every reason to believe that Republican forms of government, every branch of which is constitutionally committed to the protection of unalienable individual rights, could and would permanently solve the political aches and pains of the whole world. But there, as here and everywhere, mere form without substance must collapse of its own weight.”
Irish Bull
“When the chickens that didn’t hatch come home to roost, we will rue the day when, misled by sloppy accounting and rosy scenarios, we gave away the national nest egg.” Paul Krugman, wailing against the Bush tax cuts.
Yogiisms
“A zebra cannot change its spots.” Al Gore, referring to George Bush during the presidential campaign of 2000.
”I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn’t become a greater man than he will ever be,” Sean Penn commenting on Obama at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Bob B
RANDOM THOTS 