Has Literature R Us finally hit bottom? Well, yes, for now, because I really have no idea as to whether the good doctor and founder/inventor of modern linguistics is now or ever has been an efficacious practitioner of oral sex, but, well, it’s a funny lead, and if it’s funny, it leads. So let me explain. See, back in the day, circa 2015/2016, Noam hung out just a bit with the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, even though he knew Epstein had been convicted of, you know, one of those “crime” things. So what? “What was known about Jeffrey Epstein was that he had been convicted of a crime and had served his sentence,” “explained” Noam, to the all too nosy Wall Street Journal. “According to U.S. laws and norms, that yields a clean slate.”
Yes, it is “interesting” that the distinguished linguist shifted into the passive impersonal (“what was known”), implying, but not stating for the record, that he himself believed this to be the case, and particularly steering the conversation away from the question of whether he knew that Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from an underage prostitute—which, if it was “known”, might leave that clean slate just a little bit messy. I mean, suppose Noam was introduced to someone who had painted a swastika on a synagogue and had done his time. Still a clean slate? I wonder.
It gets, I would say, “worse” when we also learn that Noam and his wife took a flight with Jeff in (of course) Jeff's private jet from Boston to New York so that the three could journey to Jeff’s New York townhouse for a dinner with Woody Allen and wife Soon-Yi Previn. Now, I have seen nothing that would convince me that Woody Allen is or was a child molester, but his affection/fascination with the young and nubile is pretty much on record (and celluloid), so it does make the whole affair sound just a little bit more “sticky”, not at all helped along by Noam’s evasion/confirmation: “If there was a flight, which I doubt, it would have been from Boston to New York, 30 minutes. I’m unaware of the principle that requires that I inform you about an evening spent with a great artist.”
Okay, I don’t know if Noam Chomsky is a cunning linguist. But he is pretty good at kissing ass. And covering it.
Special Woody Allen Afterwords
As I say, I don’t believe that Woody Allen is a child molester, and I do believe the many charges made against him are false. Yes, I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. But I also don’t believe that Woody Allen is a great artist. My thoughts on Woody, good and bad, are on display in this little piece, Woody Allen’s Autobiography: Words of Wisdom from the Nothing Man.
For your punishment, list the ten most indicative and titillating euphemisms of the English tongue: e.g., Nim Chimpsky, bonobo?