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Refutation

06/01/10

It goes like this:

Interviewer: so, Mr Fuzzguggle, we understand that you have some explaining to do to the Parliamentary Standards Committee.

Fuzzguggle, (Hartswold, Con): I think that’s an overstatement.

Interviewer: well, how is it an overstatement?

Fuzzguggle, (Hartswold, Con): I have nothing to answer for. It’s all a misunderstanding.

Interviewer: but you apparently spent nearly eleven millions pounds of taxpayers’ money on an ornate aviary in your home in Chizelmere.

Fuzzguggle, (Hartswold, Con): I refute that allegation!

No. No, no, no, you do not. You have refuted exactly bugger all. You’ve rejected the allegation, perhaps – which you seem to think of as morally superior to denying it. (Oddly, by the way, Mr Fuzzguggle, I think that may be why so many people think you are a liar; you’re so damned important that you don’t do what the rest of us do. You don’t deny. Your hands are so clean that you can’t even touch the allegation in order to throw it away. That’s how squeaky perfect and lovely you are. Oh, yes.)

The point here is that refute doesn’t mean reject in that context. I looked it up. My OED goes out of its way to point that out, with a degree of snippiness which suggests to me they wanted to be very clear. There’s an obs/rare meaning which is a sort of ‘reject’, but it apparently only refers to objects and people – and anyway, unless you propose to reintroduce beshrew me! into the political discourse, obs/rare does not count.

Interestingly (by which I mean, in this case, wrongly) Wiktionary gives the ‘reject’ meaning along with an instance from Dr Johnson. I don’t find it persuasive, though:

I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.” (from Boswell’s “Life”)

I think that’s Johnson saying that this action refutes that allegation (in the sense I use the word), and he’s saying it rhetorically or ironically. I haven’t chased down the context yet, I admit, but even from the text I have, I think that’s moderately obvious.

I’m also aware that usage is all, but I suggest that even taking that point one has to acknowledge that words do have relatively fixed meanings, or accept that it’s perfectly legitimate to say “Your abnegation derives foppishly from my original cartography!” and expect everyone to nod and agree that you’re really got them there. Because no, people do not ‘understand what Fuzzguggle means’ when he says that. They hear different claims.

Refutation is done by science, by evidence. It is not done by shouting and moaning.

And Happy New Year.

3 Comments to “Refutation”

  • Jordan said on January 8th, 2010:

    You are quite correct Mr Harkaway. We must have some shared agreement about what words mean otherwise we can’t communicate! This is the thing that really bothers me about the weasel-words that governments and big business choose to use to obscure the meaning of their communications, like “down-sizing” instead of “mass firings”, and “extraordinary rendition” instead of “outsourced torture”.

    You are also correct in your interpretation of the Johnson scenario you present. From my memories of undergrad philosophy, Johnson is talking to a senior religious figure (?Archbishop of Canterbury?) who argued (something like) everything we see is just patterns in our mind placed there by God, and there is no objective reality. When asked how he would counter such an argument, Johnson kicked the stone, indicating that he found some value in an interpretation of the world in which objects do have physical existence and in which a foot will rebound from a stone when kicking. So Johnson was refuting the argument with a counter-argument, not just rejecting the argument and then having a little tantrum. :-)

  • Matt Keefe said on January 8th, 2010:

    True, but you’ll have a hard time refuting the meaning it seems to have acquired through all that modern usage.

  • Nick Harkaway said on January 8th, 2010:

    Jordon – YES! I even remember that now that you say it. It was George (Bishop) Berkeley. Oh, the dangers of believing everything you read…

    Matt – well, yes, up to a point. But it’s part of a larger argument; Usage excuses a multitude of sins, but it’s also very flash-in-the-pan, and it is at least moderately important that we retain consensus on meanings and nuance, lest we lose the ability to communicate. Also, I suspect ‘refute’ carries more weight than ‘deny’ specifically because what it actually means is ‘prove untrue’ – and that won’t do at all. It’s an anti-weasel word, pressed into service as a tool of spin. FREE REFUTE!

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