Lawyers (presumably supporters of Islamist parties) showered Mumtaz Qadri, self-confessed killer of Governor Salman Taseer, with rose petals on his first court appearance. He was also garlanded with a garland of roses.
This post can be read in conjunction with this one…the comments on the earlier post are also relevant.
Nitpick: Isn’t “self-confessed” redundant? Maybe not. Maybe these days somebody else can “confess” on your behalf…
LikeLike
Good question.
I dont know, “confessed killer” sounds strange too. An English professor should weigh in. I am sure my sentence needs to be corrected, but corrected to what?
LikeLike
Omar, you will get used to Dean in time :-) I know that I have. He is really fun once you realize that he is a “self-confessed” (or “confessed by others”) curmudgeon and nit-picker. But that is only his public persona.
LikeLike
Maybe ‘self-boasted killer’ should be used. Qadri seems proud enough of himself, even without all that adulation being showered along with the rose petals.
LikeLike
From OED:
self-confessed adj.
c1900 H. A. Jones Mrs. Dane’s Defence iv. 83, I intend that Mrs. Bulsom-Porter shall stay as a *self-confessed scandal-monger.
1981 ‘M. Underwood’ Hand of Fate ii. 91, Even a self-confessed liar is capable of telling the truth.
The entry for “confess, v.” bears this out, too.
To declare or disclose (something which one has kept or allowed to remain secret as being prejudicial or inconvenient to oneself); to acknowledge, own, or admit (a crime, charge, fault, weakness, or the like).
I confess, I’m surprised by this. (What kind of Mobius strip of a brain must one have to be “a self-confessed liar”?)
LikeLike
And now from Fowler who distinguishes between ‘self-despondent’ (adds nothing to the meaning) and ‘self-evident’ (a real sense of its own), and gives some cautionary examples from the two groups. “But these are samples only; there are scores of possible compounds that a writer should not use without first asking himself whether the ‘self-‘ is pulling its weight. It is not to be supposed that the otiose [love that word!] use of ‘self-‘ is a modern trick; on the contrary, the modern tendency is to abandon many such compounds formerly prevalent, and the object of this article is merely to help on that sensible tendency.”
Webster’s wimps out as usual but notes that ‘self-confessed’ may be appropriate when the meaning is ‘admitted’ or ‘avowed’, rather than ‘confessed’. Examples cited are ‘a self-confessed poet / eccentric / maverick / taste’.
Such apparent tautology is balanced in the language by silly usages like the warning I just saw on TV: ‘This program contains graphic images’. Jeez, I should hope so!
LikeLike
Lovely, just lovely. Thanks Dean and Narayan, for adding a linguistic distraction to an otherwise disturbing story. But that’s why blogging is so much fun – free flowing tangential thinking at its best. Who said we have to stick to the central theme of a post?
BTW, have the two of you considered writing a joint post where you can blow off steam about the careless misuse of language? It may be as much fun as the joint review of “Sea of Poppies” that Narayan and I published.
As for “graphic images,” sure Narayan, I would hope so too :-)
LikeLike
I would not rely on my own authority respecting misuse of language. In general, I can be pretty sloppy. Worse, I’ll turn a phrase not because it’s right for the occasion, but because I recently read and subconsciously admired somebody else’s use of it. So, for example, I’ll probably be dropping “otiose” in a memo sometime soon.
I have a buddy who is exceptionally good at picking out verbal blunders of one sort or another, particularly where grammatical or verbal conventions emerge from deliberate popular cultural misuses. How many people of a certain age still say, “It put a cramp in my style”? It’s “crimp.” A cramp is a symptom of diarrhea, for which the advertisement promoted a remedy.
Alright, back to the post. I’m not picking on you, Omar, I swear. But “garlanded with a garland”?
LikeLike
LOL. yes, garlanded with roses would have been enough.
LikeLike
Accidental Blogger 
Leave a reply to Dean C. Rowan Cancel reply