Confuse two aspects. I am.
by Mark Dingemanse
Just a linguistic note here on Warren Buffett's widely publicized advice to buy American stock. Buffett's op-ed piece in the New York Times was graced by the headline "Buy American. I am."
The quirky headline wasn't picked up by the fellows over at Language Log, who are much too busy these days with the g-droppin' or tactical g-lessness by a certain lady whose name ends in emphatic -in. It was, however, noticed by Fritinancy in a post titled 'To "Am," or Not to "Am"?.' As she writes, 'Trouble is, the two halves of the headline don't match up.'
Why not? Friedman attributes it to the fact that "buy" is a 'verb of activity', requiring the declaration that follows to contain a similar verb such as "do". But the be-verb is is not really incompatible with the 'activity verb' "buy". It combines perfectly with the present progressive form 'buying', for example (as in the question mentioned over at Fritinancy: "Buying American?"). So the implied form must have been "I am [buying American]".
That makes it an aspect issue — the truncated clause presupposes an imperative in the progressive aspect ('Be buying American') but for some reason it ended up following a bare imperative. The effect is a slightly jarring, but still understandable headline, just like the self-referential title of today's posting. Understand this. Am I?
Filed under Fun, Linguistics | Comments (2)2 Responses to “Confuse two aspects. I am.”
Thanks for setting me straight on the real reasons the headline doesn’t quite work!
Ugh, the imperative ‘be buying’ sounds absolutely atrocious to my ear (and to the ears of the two non-linguists I consulted when I read this). And while I see the apparent problem with the aspect mismatch, I can’t think of a way to reword Buffet’s statement that both ‘fixes’ this and retains the meaning. Maybe imperatives are underspecified for aspect?