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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006Specious.
A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to judge from her photograph. She was eating her school dinner on Thursday, when a piece of sausage became lodged in her throat. In spite of the efforts (of a competence that has not yet been assessed) of the staff, they were unable to save her from choking to death. She died shortly after being admitted to the local hospital. The local newspaper, the Yorkshire Evening Post, led that night with the main headline on the front page "She died after eating school dinner". Factually correct, yet conveying the (probably) false impression that there may have been something wrong with the food that had been offered to the girl. Only when you read the full story is this false impression rectified. In my understanding of the word, the headline (viewed in isolation) is an example of the distinction between "specious" and "lying". "Specious" may well be factually correct, yet (deliberately or not) convey entirely the wrong impression. "Lying" is the utterance of a statement that is factually incorrect. Do other contributors agree that this is the main distinction between lying and being specious? I personally make a further distinction. In the case of lying, I would say that a "lie" must be the *deliberate* utterance of an untruth. If I make a statement that I sincerely believe to be factually correct, but which subsequently turns out to be untrue, then I have not lied: I have simply been mistaken. Does the same distinction apply to the word "specious"? If the unfortunate headline "She died after eating school dinner" was the result of human error and incorrect editing -- as seems likely, since there would be no incentive for the newspaper to issue a specious report on such a story -- can we still call their headline "specious"? Richard Chambers Leeds UK. > [...] I would say > that a "lie" must be the *deliberate* utterance of an untruth. If I make a [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > would be no incentive for the newspaper to issue a specious report on such a > story -- Agreed about 'lying', not sure about 'specious', and disagree on you last point. I think that there can be lots of incentives for the newspaper: Most parents will want to know 'What's in the school dinner?' Most people will want to know 'What's in the food? Was it spinach?' Hordes of people will want to find out 'What's wrong with the school, or schools, or the teachers?' A large number of people will want to work out 'What's wrong with the education and health systems?' and 'What has the government done or not done now?' So everyone will want to buy the newspaper.  SignatureSolo Thesailor http://sailingstoriesandtips.blogspot.com > A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in > the rest of the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > issue a specious report on such a story -- can we still call > their headline "specious"? After reading what MW11 has to say about "specious"[1], I would have to disagree with that usage. The headline seems no more or less than "misleading" in this case. Half-truths are also misleading, and I would call the headline a half-truth, and a deliberate attempt to mislead in order to attract readers. "Girl chokes to death on school meal" is equal in length and not at all misleading ================================= [1] Main Entry: specious Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, visually pleasing, from Latin speciosus beautiful, plausible, from species Date:1513 1 obsolete : SHOWY 2 : having deceptive attraction or allure 3 : having a false look of truth or genuineness : SOPHISTIC *specious reasoning* SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." > A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of > the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > may have been something wrong with the food that had been offered to the > girl. Only when you read the full story is this false impression rectified. [snip] Before you go on, there's a bit of background the international audience needs. For the last several months there's been a huge uproar about school dinners -- a TV chef and his allies have worked on getting more nutritious food into the schools, with, apparently, a large backlash from people who complain their kids don't want to eat that posh food but want and deserve their fried foods, chips (fries) and so on. There's been footage of mothers showing up at the school gates pushing cheeseburgers through the railings to the crowds of young ones. So right now, anything mentioning "school dinners" in the headlines gets attention. Which side the Yorkshire Evening Post may be on, I don't know -- it might depend on whether the girl was served one of the new reform dinners or an old-style one. Now as to "specious," it's a word I rarely use. "Misleading" would do for me here, I think. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >> A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of >> the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] >So right now, anything mentioning "school dinners" in the headlines gets >attention. Yes. My second thought on seeing the headline was "Was it a traditional school dinner or one of the Jamie Oliver 'healthy' variety?". >Which side the Yorkshire Evening Post may be on, I don't know >-- it might depend on whether the girl was served one of the new reform >dinners or an old-style one. > >Now as to "specious," it's a word I rarely use. "Misleading" would do >for me here, I think. For me too. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >Before you go on, there's a bit of background the international audience >needs. For the last several months there's been a huge uproar about [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >been footage of mothers showing up at the school gates pushing >cheeseburgers through the railings to the crowds of young ones. I have wondered whether some kids who are accustomed to and enjoy the taste and texture of fried foods, burgers and other so-called "junk food" might not eat more in total -- "fancy" nutritious food at school plus "junk food" outside school. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) > I have wondered whether some kids who are accustomed to and enjoy the > taste and texture of fried foods, burgers and other so-called "junk > food" might not eat more in total -- "fancy" nutritious food at > school plus "junk food" outside school. Recently heard story: a woman knew that her mother had been put on a diet for obesity-related health problems, so she was surprised to see her tucking into a large fat-filled dinner. "What about your diet?" she asked. "Oh, I ate that an hour ago." SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. >Now as to "specious," it's a word I rarely use. "Misleading" would do >for me here, I think. I use "specious" occasionally, but only in the sense of specious reasoning. A person can come to an opinion or position based on specious reasoning. For some reason, I would never apply the word to the result of the specious reasoning. For that reason, a misleading or false statement is not a specious headline to me, but the thought process that led to writing that headline could be. This reflects my own use, but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't accept other uses as acceptable. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>Now as to "specious," it's a word I rarely use. "Misleading" would do >>for me here, I think. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > This reflects my own use, but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't accept > other uses as acceptable. Yes, I would agree with this usage as well. What, though, is the distinction between specious reasoning and tendentious reasoning? Are these two terms synonymous? Richard Chambers Leeds UK. >Yes, I would agree with this usage as well. What, though, is the distinction >between specious reasoning and tendentious reasoning? Are these two terms >synonymous? I would say that "tendentious reasoning" is intentionally engaging in fallacy to support a prejudice, whereas a "specious argument" does not necessarily imply bad faith (it could simply be due to ignorance, inadequate evidence, or a simple mental error). Compare "spurious". -GAWollman SignatureGarrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are wollman@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness >>>Now as to "specious," it's a word I rarely use. "Misleading" would do >>>for me here, I think. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >between specious reasoning and tendentious reasoning? Are these two terms >synonymous? Not to me. "Tendentious" indicates a bias, but "specious" can just indicate lack of thinking things out. The lack may be because of extant bias, but lack of information to form a reasoned opinion is not necessarily based on bias. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL > So right now, anything mentioning "school dinners" in the headlines gets > attention. Which side the Yorkshire Evening Post may be on, I don't know > -- it might depend on whether the girl was served one of the new reform > dinners or an old-style one. Looks like you already answered that in your first sentence: On the side of making money. > A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of > the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > would be no incentive for the newspaper to issue a specious report on such a > story -- can we still call their headline "specious"? "Specious" doesn't sound quite right to me. I'd use "disingenuous". Adrian > A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of > the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > unable to save her from choking to death. She died shortly after being > admitted to the local hospital. > The local newspaper, the Yorkshire Evening Post, led that night with the > main headline on the front page "She died after eating school dinner". [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > incorrect. Do other contributors agree that this is the main distinction > between lying and being specious? > I personally make a further distinction. In the case of lying, I would say > that a "lie" must be the *deliberate* utterance of an untruth. If I make a [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > would be no incentive for the newspaper to issue a specious report on such a > story -- can we still call their headline "specious"? I wouldn't accept "specious" as the right descriptor for that headline. In my experience, "specious" refers to the reasoning that has led to a conclusion, not to the conclusion itself. The most recent meaning of "specious" is given in _Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary_ as 3 : having a false look of truth or genuineness : SOPHISTIC *specious reasoning* Another thing wrong with "specious" as applied to your headline is that the headline is not false. She did indeed die after eating a school dinner. Consulting a thesaurus and a synonym dictionary, I find that of the many synonyms or near synonyms that might apply to the headline, all of them are to some degree pejorative. But in my opinion the least pejorative is "misleading". It doesn't seem fair to assume that the writer of the headline had malicious intent. I would rather assume the headline resulted from careless lack of sufficient thought, or lack of full information. I would call it misleading rather than specious, but only as the least bad choice. Even "erroneous", which implies no malicious intent at all, is not good, because the statement that the girl died after eating a school dinner was not an error. We're looking for a word that describes unequivocally a possibly innocent distortion of the truth. Does that word exist? > > A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of > > the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > possibly innocent distortion of the truth. Does that word > exist?- "Deceptive" ? But I prefer "misleading" which you mentioned. The Bob Cunningham entity posted thusly: >I wouldn't accept "specious" as the right descriptor for >that headline. In my experience, "specious" refers to the >reasoning that has led to a conclusion, not to the >conclusion itself. The most recent meaning of "specious" is >given in _Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary_ as Nor would I, but not because it applies to the conclusion. Not that it applies in this case, but I consider that both the reasoning and conclusion form part of what I would call "a specious argument". There really isn't an argument here (in the headline), but what I would call a misleading statement. The headline itself is of a form that I generally dislike. "Man Dies After Traffic Accident" says nothing about the cause of death, only the time of death, and often, even that is in error, as the subject may well have died during the accident. Not all headlines of that form are misleading, of course, but since that form is so common, it is very easy for the misleading ones to be slipped in. >> A sad news story this week in the Yorkshire region, but not in the rest of >> the country, concerns a little girl aged six. A very pretty young child, to [quoted text clipped - 57 lines] >possibly innocent distortion of the truth. Does that word >exist? I think so, and you may well have just nearly said it yourself: "distorted". (See also "loaded" and "skewed".) I don't think it's all that innocent either. As Donna pointed out, "school dinners" are sexy in the British meeja at the moment, so they're worked into news stories and headlines even when they're quite irrelevant -- I suppose that in America the same story might have carried the headline "JoBenet lookalike slain by terror sausage". SignatureMillicent Tendency (TEFKATHE) |
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