What is the real Manson story

A disturbing alternate version of the Manson story:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/style/charles-manson-book.html?searchResultPosition=2

Transpire: A checkered career

In the Elizabethan period, Renaissance English enjoyed a vigorous and robust growth, with numerous neologisms introduced to the reading public.¹ One of the words coined was transpire, which has since survived, though it has had a checkered career.

It belongs to the group of -spire words, as in inspire, perspire, conspire.

From Google we have:

tran·spire
/tran(t)ˈspī(ə)r/

verb
1. occur; happen. "I'm going to find out exactly what transpired"
synonyms: happen, occur, take place, come about, come to pass, crop up, turn up, arise, chance, ensue, befall, be realized, take shape...
2. BOTANY (of a plant or leaf) give off water vapor through the stomata.

From the Online Dictionary of Etymology:

transpire (v.)

1590s, "pass off in the form of a vapor or liquid," from Middle French transpirer (16c.), from Latin trans "across, beyond; through" (see trans-) "spirare" to "breathe" (see spirit (n.)). Figurative sense of "leak out, become known" is recorded from 1741, and the erroneous meaning "take place, happen" is almost as old, being first recorded 1755. Related: Transpired;transpiring.

Related Entries

- trans-
- spirit
- transpiration

From the Oxford Dictionary of English edited by Angus Stevenson:

tran·spire
/tran(t)ˈspī(ə)r/

Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense ‘emit as vapor through the surface’): from French transpireror and medieval Latin transpirare, from Latin trans -- "through" + spirare "breathe." Sense 1 (mid 18th century) is a figurative use comparable with "leak out."

According to Boswell's Life of Johnson, the dictionary compiler had an aversion to transpire, specifically downgrading it when used to mean: "To escape from secrecy to notice; a sense lately innovated from France, without necessity." Boswell adds, "The truth was Lord Bolingbroke, who left the Jacobites [who rebelled in 1715], first used it; therefore it was to be condemned. He should have shown what word would do for it, if it was unnecessary."

Samuel Johnson was evidently in error, as we see that modern experts have tracked the word to the late 16th century. I was unable to find a first usage citation online, although I found in a book² on etymology, this example, sans citation:

So many were in the gunpowder plot [of 1605], that it was almost certain to transpire by the day fixed.

Note that the writer of this passage is using the word in Bolingbroke's sense.

From the foregoing, we see disagreement among experts of the past and today about correct usage. Modern dictionaries generally follow usage -- even occasional usage -- rather than any particular standard, as we see from the Google dictionary, which puts out what many hold to be poor usage as a proper definition. In other words, dictionaries tend to be no help in resolving concerns about correct usage.

In my estimate, transpire makes good sense as a technical term, as in this example:

EARTH MAGNETOSPHERE
How trans-polar arcs transpire above

Margaret M. Moerchen

Science 19 Dec 2014

Back in the early 1960s, however, the word was a favorite of police officers who wanted to spruce up their reports in order to sound more professional. They used it to mean "happen," "occur" or "take place." Woe betide the cub reporter who let that bit of police-ese slip into his copy. No city editor or copy reader worth his or her salt would ever permit such a locution to transpire into the newspaper.

In fact, I must admit that there is no particular logical reason to eschew transpire in that sense. It could be that in a hundred years the word will be favored while, say, "happen," falls into disuse. I can hear it now: "That ain't gonna happen."

From a philosophical viewpoint, the word could be justified as a synonym for "happen." What is an event, if not at least the observation of some defined change? So, as Hegel notes, how does one get from one change to the next? Through some sort of holism, in which the thesis and the antithesis come together in the synthesis. Also, the observation of an event always comes through a medium or media, which is to say the news of it transpires into one's brain/mind.

So when an event is apprehended by the observer -- the only event that really counts -- it is a form of transpiration. In addition, if one does not accept materialism or Cartesian dualism, then the universe is composed of mind-stuff, AKA spirit. We are all puffs of smoke transpiring in a Great Spirit, by that view.

---

1. A History of the English Language by Albert C. Baugh (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1951). Saved at 1:52 PM

2. A Manual of Etymology: Containing Latin & Greek Derivatives : with a Key By Anne C. Webb (Published 1879).

Mueller has not been exonerated

By de facto Special Counsel John Durham, who is investigating the Trump frame-up conspiracy.

Of course, it is not Durham's job to exonerate anybody. That's never a prosecutor's job.

Alan Dershowitz writes:

The word of the day, following the confusing and confused testimony of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller before two House committees Wednesday, is “exonerate” –- or more precisely, “not exonerate.”

Exoneration is not the job of our legal system. Mueller’s attempt to introduce it is an extraordinary and dangerous innovation that would endanger the presumption of innocence we all have under the law.

More at Foxnews
http://foxnews.com

Curiously, Mueller seems to equate a "non-exoneration" with an inability to decide whether Trump had committed a crime. If so, then one could logically infer that Mueller had insufficient evidence to charge, and that is what his report should have said -- sans the specious bit about exoneration.

“I want to add one correction to my testimony this morning," Mueller told the House Intelligence Committee, after testimony before the Judiciary Committee earlier Wednesday. "I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu, who said and I quote, ‘You didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’ That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.” [OLC refers to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.]

It's me

It's me

The pronoun I generally indicates that the self is the actor, whereas the pronoun me generally indicates that the self is being or will be acted upon. I tends to fit with subject, while me is regarded as object -- as in "I verb object" and "Subject verb me"?

So then, what of the supposedly proper response, "It is I" to the question "Who is there?" ? Doesn't that appear to break our little rule?

I daresay that we get that formality from "It is I who am at the door," where "I who" is the subject of a sentence-like clause. Yet, the clause cannot be used as a stand-alone sentence, thus making the analogy iffy.

On the other hand most of us would accept the abbreviated response "I am" for "I am the person at your door."

Now as for the reply, "It's me," note that the form of the sentence is correct. "Me" falls under object. Suppose one says, "The person in question is I." Definitely not! It should be, "The person in question is me." So why should there be any difference when we substitute it for the person in question?

It is plainly a mental space-holder, either used as an abbreviation of a subject recently expressed or as another word for a "something" that we wish not to define very clearly, as in "It is raining." (Though "Rain is falling" sounds better to my ear, many would think it sounds stilted or even foreign.)

In any case, if the question is "Who am I to expect?", would it be improper to reply, "It is me that you are to expect" or "It is me whom you are to expect"? Turn it around and see: "You are to expect me."

Now we come upon the nicety of the conjunction that versus who/whom. I won't discuss that one at length, but only note that if one, in response to "Who is there?", replies "It is me that is at the door," this doesn't sound bad, but the reply "It is me who is at the door" might sound uneducated.

Similarly, we have such forms as "It is I whom you seek," versus the snappier, "You seek me." Yet when one says, "It is me that you seek," I'll be go-to-heck if I know who is on top: I or me. I'd no doubt duck behind, "I am the one you seek."

Also, our analysis shows that the one-word answer can be either I or me. In the first case, the implied words are along the line of "I am the one you seek" and in the second case, we have "You seek me."

Then we have myself, which seems to fit as a substitute for both I and me.

Q: Who did the work?

A1: I myself did it.

or

A2: I did it [by] myself.

In case 1, we have two personal pronouns coupled. Myself is used for emphasis, as in "I and I alone did it."

In case 2, "by myself" is analogous to "with Joe." In turn, this is analogous to "with me." Of course, "I did it with me" is redundant, but it is not logically wrong.

Anyway, when all is said and done,

Me, I vote for "I am."