For Lack of a Comma, Biden Gets in Trouble
Whoever ends up performing the autopsy for Joe Biden's presidential ambitions–unless he wins, defying the very law of gravity–will have plenty of valid choices for "cause of death." Among them: "comma deficiency."
It all started a few days ago when Biden met a reporter for the New York Observer, Jason Horowitz, at a diner in Delaware to discuss his presidential ambitions. The article quotes Biden as saying of Democratic phenom Barack Obama: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
Cue the firestorm. Critics were quick to jump on the senior senator from Delaware for being either a racist or a buffoon, pointing to other black candidates for the presidency, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who were perfectly articulate, bright, and clean. (When Biden called Sharpton to apologize, Sharpton assured him that he bathed every day.)
Biden told reporters yesterday that he was quoted accurately but out of context. This is wrong. Jason Horowitz crudely misquoted Joe Biden.
At issue here is whether there should have been a comma after "African-American." In response to the firestorm, the Observer released the audio of Biden's comment, transcribed here:
BIDEN: I mean you got the first, sorta, mainstream African-American.
HOROWITZ: Yeah.
BIDEN: Who's articulate and bright and–and clean and a nice-looking guy.
HOROWITZ: Mm.
It's common practice to "clean up" a source's quotes, redacting the "ums" and "sortas" that just about everyone uses as mortar in their sentences. But Horowitz failed to insert a comma after "African-American," when there was clearly a pause in Biden's sentence.
This is not a trivial mistake. Removing the comma completely changes the meaning of the sentence.
George Washington University graduate student Chelsea Bromstad, who answered the phone today at GW's Writing Center, helped clear it up. Let's examine the two scenarios here.
As transcribed, "first" modifies "mainstream African-American," which in turn modifies the phrase "who's articulate and bright." Here's a rewritten version of the sentence:
Barack Obama, of all the previous mainstream African-American candidates, is the first one who is articulate, bright, clean, and nice-looking.
What a difference a comma makes.
But regarding what Biden actually said, a comma after "African-American," Bromstad says, would clearly denote that "first" is modifying only "mainstream," making it an adverb that modifies an adjective. Here's a rewritten version, the way Biden clearly meant it:
Barack Obama, of all the previous African-American candidates, is the first one who's mainstream. He's also articulate, bright, clean, and nice-looking.
In that case, Biden is probably right: Obama certainly has far more mainstream appeal than the previous African-Americans who have run for president.
"It's just an issue of modification," Bromstad says. Still, she acknowledges the ambiguity: "Grammar is really complicated."
Most of the media attention has focused on Biden's choice of the word clean. He says he wishes he had used the wordfresh. But this issue pales in comparison with the larger problem.
Biden's quote, as transcribed, was not misconstrued. It was misconstructed.
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