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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: alan w who wrote (10371)	1/18/1999 8:18:00 AM
From: j g cordes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13994

Now you're defining words outside their common meaning. <g> As is is to is and isn't what it is, or the definition of sex. Serial would not be used to describe the delivery of milk, nor of a serial drug user, or a serial pick pocket. "Serial murder" is the common and well used phrase: vhttp://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&kl=XX&q=%22serial+murder%22 "Serial adulterer" yeilds many pointed laughs as a misuse of the English language: "B O N U S for the best wrong answer! A: "Throbbin' Cook to Wed his Lover" Daily Star, Monday 12 January. The Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced his plans to wed as soon as he was divorced from his wife of 28 years. The news came immediately after allegations that Robin Cook was a serial adulterer, that told his wife to be quiet on the journey to their honeymoon destination so that he could get on with his work, and that he looks like a garden gnome." bwana-mkubwa.oaktree.co.uk An especially enjoyable read on English stretch mentions it specifically: quinion.demon.co.uk "Some years ago in Britain, there was a particularly unpleasant series of murders of young women by someone the papers tagged the Yorkshire Ripper (and there's a fine example of thought-free derivative naming for you). The phrase serial killer was then relatively new in Britain but journalists discovered that it not only fitted this case in particular, but that serial was an excellent phrase-starter, neatly combining immediate recognition with some sort of relevant sense (though, as exasperated logicians pointed out about serial rapist, such activities are not commonly carried out in parallel). So we had serial bomber, serial adulterer, serial monogamy (in which a person has only one lover at a time, perhaps the best of the bunch), serial cannibalism, serial golfer, serial truant and even serial mistake. Luckily for my peace of mind, this fashion seems to have died. " Suffice to say its a serial mistake, in a series of comments, to serial overstate the obvious... besides if he and Hillary had random or even serial conjugation, then there could be no serial anything oustide their marriage, only random but consistent escapades. Who knows, one day there may be a phrase "presidential adulty" to distinguish it from the 300 million events of common adultry estimated to occur each year in the US.