Asymmetrical Information

BWAH!!!!!!!

And if they push you for more details, you can tell them that the requirement for a state of the union address is in the Constitution, at Article II, Section 3.

You're welcome.

BR,
Fritz/f

Where'd you get Lincoln from? The president is required to deliver a message on the state of the Union to congress, but Jefferson discontinued the practice of delivering it in person. (He thought it inappropriate). Teddy Roosevelt revived the practice of an actual address (he couldn't pass up the chance to be the certer of attention), which has been followed ever since. Lincoln never delivered a SOTU address...

Ooops - a quick google tells me it was Wilson, not Roosevelt, who revived it. I guess I was confusing him with FDR, who was the first to refer to it as the "State of the Union Speech".

http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/history.html

Yeah, but note the wishy-washy "outcomes-based education" method of the question. What do YOU THINK the State of the Union is.

Therefore, no answer is incorrect, there are simply some that are "more right" than others!

My bad -- at some point I learned that Lincoln was the first to give it. Will correct.

This explanation would have been even funnier if Leslie Nielsen had read it aloud and concluded, "But that's not important right now."

What is the point of deliberately misconstruing a question?

It's a joke. Jokes are things we humans tell each other in order to produce a spastic contraction of the diaphragm and facial muscles known as a "laugh". Often, when a turn of phrase has an ambiguous meaning that strikes us as funny, we will deliberately misconstrue it in order to provoke this reaction in others.

Was the original question ambiguous?

Ambigous or not, the sentence is a question only in the sense that it ends with a '?'. In the context described by Megan it is so laugh-(see definition above)-ably biased that the urge to play some word games with it is almost uncontrollable.

IMO this just goes to show the importance of the straight line in comedy. Without a good setup you just don't have a joke.

Yes, in the sense that it could have two meanings: "What do you think the state of the union is?" (how do you think America's doing?) or "What do you think the State of the Union is?" (What is the State of the Union address?)

There's an old saying, Jane--"Everybody likes a piece of, but nobody likes a smart..."

I suspect it goes double for clueless Dems.

Thanks for the giggle--especially the closer... "No, don't thank me. I'm a giver."

I just don't think any reasonable person (even a character in _Airplane!_) would interpret the question "What do YOU think the State of the Union is?" to mean "What is the State of the Union Address?" Too big a stretch.

Wrt "biased" (Chris). A message sent from the Democratic Party as such is going to be partisan. By definition.

"What do you think the State of the Union is?"

Correct me if I'm wrong (my grammar is awful, too), but isn't the question grammatically incorrect? You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.

The Democrats should have said, "What do you think the State of the Union is, you worthless, unthinking prole?"

It was a joke, Orbitron. You're taking this waaaaaaay too seriously. It's not a commentary on anything except a turn of phrase that struck me funny. If you didn't find it funny, that's fine, but there's no need to call out the post police.

Actually, is is a verb, not a preposition, and it's perfectly grammatical to end a question with an implied predicate nominative. (How's that for erudite? Hmmm? Impressed yet?)

Jeff, I think you're right. It should be phrased, "The State of the Union! What is it?" THEN insert the Jane Galt-as-Leslie Nielsen response with Paul's tag, "but that's not important right now." Funny, funny, stuff.

[closer gag]

I don't get it.

[/closer gag]

"Is" is not a preposition. (Insert obligatory Monty Python quote here...)

And anyway, that whole rule about not ending a sentence in a preposition is just for obsessive grammer nerds. As Churchill was said to have replied to someone who called him on it: "This is the sort of officious nonsense up with which I will not put!"

And anyway, that whole rule about not ending a sentence in a preposition is just for obsessive grammer nerds.

That is a grammatical principle without which I could not do.

It's not a joke. It's a put down. And a fairly nasty one as well. But delivered with the smile that mean intellectuals seem to prefer.

Heavens! You people obviously don't have enough to do!

Heavens! You people obviously don't have enough to do!

Heavens! Bob obviously has more than enough to do...like hit that "POST" button twice!

"Sometimes a preposition is the only thing you can end a sentence with." -- Andy Rooney

There's an old saying, Jane--"Everybody likes a piece of, but nobody likes a smart..."

Id' rather be a smarta$$ than a dumba$$.

Orbitron

Sorry...couldn't resist.

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