Andy Borowitz Davis Logsdon is a distinguished university professor

The politics of agreementNovember 19, 2008 @ 3:08 pm · Filed by David Beaver under Humor, Language and politics



There was rather an unfortunate fracas in the sherry lounge at Language Log plaza yesterday. Liberman was still throwing his weight around with evidence that attacks on Palin's language are mostly ill-informed linguistic snobbery, when Pullum, who is much better informed than most snobs, pulled the rug out from under his feet.

Now, at last, we can get discussion of political language from an expert whose credentials are not open to question. Here is presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota (quoted at the Huffington Post, by his mouthpiece Andy Borowitz):

Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement….

Now, it's true that this apposite little witticism reinforces a stereotype (i.e. Obama speaks fluently compared to certain other salient politicos). And it's also true that no evidence at all is offered for the generalization. But it's important to keep in mind that the expert providing the quote, Davis Logsdon is a distinguished university professor.


And Professor Logsdon's primary distinction… is that he doesn't exist. Not only that, but he moves around. While currently a non-existent historian, it appears he was formerly a non-existent dean of the non-existent School of Divinity at the University of Minnesota, as described here:

It is “highly unorthodox” for a presidential candidate to select a vice presidential running mate who is a prominent figure in the Holy Bible, says Davis Logsdon, dean of the School of Divinity at the University of Minnesota.

But according to Mr. Logsdon, if the Huckabee-Christ ticket makes it all the way to the White House, it could be historic in more ways than one: “If Huckabee is elected and then something happens to him while in office, we would be looking at our first Jewish president.”

And then there was his stint as a law professor:

At the University of Minnesota's School of Law, professor Davis Logsdon said there is "a valuable lesson to be learned" from Mr. Simpson's conviction: "Apparently, in America it's easier to get away with murder than stealing sports memorabilia."

But most excitingly, Logsdon is also one of our own. Yes, here we learn that among all his other non-existent positions, Logsdon is a former linguist, once called upon to translate Bush's State of the Union address into English. (Translation, of course, is the main job that fictional linguists do.) The article foreshadows Logsdon's later comments on Obama, running with the fluent/disfluent politico meme:

Davis Logsdon, a professor of linguistics at the University of Minnesota, was one of several scholars approached to do the translation who ultimately quit in frustration.


“The problem is that the language the president speaks, by most measures, is not a language at all,” Professor Logsdon said.

So is he a non-existent former linguist, or a former non-existent linguist? Either way, I much prefer a fictional expert on language to the media norm: real experts with fictional expertise. So if you're reading this Professor Logsdon, you have a standing invitation to join us and our many other fictional friends for a little something in the Language Log sherry lounge.