Life's Persistent Questions

Words of the day, aka the day George W. taught me a lesson

President Bush gave a speech this morning. Blah blah blah, social security is broke. Blah blah blah Rummy is great. Blah blah blah Russo-American relationship is complicated. Wait. He corrected himself:


But this is a vital and important relationship, and it's a relationship where -- you know, it's complicated. It's complex rather than complicated. It's complex because we have joint efforts when it comes to sharing intelligence to fight terrorism.

Well, the transcript cleaned up his bumbling, but there was a pause and emphasis on changing to complex. So what's the difference between the two adjectives "complicated" and "complex?" I had to look this up. According to The Maven's Word of the Day:

[Complex,] when used as an adjective, it's used most often in a denotative way, simply describing things that have a lot of parts.

[But complicated also] means 'composed of many elaborate interconnecting parts'. So, when do things get complicated? Usually, when an element of frustration enters in. The use of complicate as a verb gives an indication of this: if you complicate things, the implication is that you're making a situation unnecessarily complex. Complicated is more connotative of annoyance or puzzlement in its use.

So the take home message is that things can be complex, but don't have to be complicated unless you aren't bright enough to follow the intricacy of the subject. Now, some may argue that America's alliance with Russia in the war on terrorism is in fact confusing, or complicated, considering Putin has replaced democracy with autocracy, and obsecured the nationalist goals of the Chechyn rebels with a blanket label of Islamic terrorists. But it's hard work to try to change another country, especially when it's half way around the world, and it holds a bunch of WMDs. Hey, now I put it that way, it doesn't seem so complicated, or complex anymore.

But the bigger question is, did W. let it slip and finally showed us his true intellectual color? The man know's the difference between "comlicated" and "complex!" I know what you cynics think, oh Karl Rove must have berrated him for using the wrong word for the fear of calling something complicated and therefore confusing, thus offending someone. But I rather believe that my president aced his fifth grade english.

posted by hedgehog @ 9:33 PM