Re: In thE nAme of liTeracy and WORthy kate bushological stuDieS...

[stewarte@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (The Man Who Invented Himself)]

Was I only dreaming, or did IED really say:

>     By contrast, there are literally reams of data to _refute_
>|>oug's claim. Virtually every sentence Kate has ever uttered contains
>the kernel of her character, moral outlook and aesthetic principles, and
>in each of these there is adequate "proof" of the falsehood of |>oug's
>absurd notion. IED therefore finds it ridiculous that _he_ should have
>to bear the burden of proof that |>oug's silly argument is untenable.

IED, this is the most amazing non-argument I have ever heard.  Your
knowledge of Kate Bush is certainly impressive, but to dismiss out
of hand the possibility that she could have described one of her
songs as "Nice to Swallow", on the basis that it's inconsistent with
her character, is both absurd and grossly presumptive.

>     _Nevertheless_, IED will do so--by discrediting both the authority of
>|>oug's solitary source and |>oug's own competence to judge the issue
>at all--with _specific_ and _plentiful_ evidence.

It should be noted, in IED's attack on |>oug's competence, that the word
that he claims |>oug misheard was considerably less obvious from context
than "Night of the Swallow" would be to someone who knew Kate's work.
However, it does bring yet another (admittedly far-fetched) possibility
to mind:  that the interviewer mis-heard Kate, but assumed she was 
making a pun or inside joke.  However, given !>oug's citation of the
interviewer's comments about "The Dreaming", I'm willing to believe
that the quote was taken down correctly -- it now seems to me the
simplest explanation.  

>     Contrary to |>oug's recent claim that his tawdry source for the false
>"Nice to Swallow" quotation--the magazine _Lady-Killers_--is relatively free
>of mistakes, it is, in fact, _swamped_ in a veritable sea of them! In fact,
>even within the short excerpt relevant to this discussion no fewer than _six_
>misspelled song-titles can be found, as well as at least one other misspelled
>word! Among the errors are "Don't Push Your Foot on the Hearbreak", "james
>And The Cold Gun", "Favourtie tracks", and "Symphoney in Blue". Mind you, this
>is within a span of fewer than 500 words, in a section specifically devoted
>to and primarily consisting of a listing of Kate's songs!

Yes, but those are all plausibly explained as _typographical_ errors.  To
assume that a typographical error could have transformed "Night of the 
Swallow" into "Nice to Swallow" is extremely far-fetched.  I think that
the only plausible source of error here is transcription error -- the two
phrases _sound_ much more alike than they _look_.  However, the fact that
the interviewer claimed to be familiar with Kate's work, and specifically
to have listened to The Dreaming many times, makes this possibility seem
less likely.  Which is why, as I said above, the simplest explanation 
seems to be that Kate really said "Nice to Swallow", for whatever reason.

>     Two conclusions must be drawn. 

May I be so bold as to draw a third:  both IED and |>oug are so stubborn
that there can be no hope of resolving this dispute short of placing them
in a locked room together and declare the survivor to be factually correct
in all things.  
-- 
"They call me crazy, but my
 name is Clifton Chenier."
				-- Clifton Chenier
/*  uunet!sco!stewarte  -or-  stewarte@sco.COM  -or-  Stewart Evans  */