Greenberg on Krugman
November 01, 2006
If you haven't seen this yet, it's a classic. Columnist Paul Greenberg smacks down Paul Krugman.
There's a name for Paul Krugman's favorite figure of speech. It's called an Irish bull — in honor of an 18th century Irish parliamentarian, Sir Boyle Roche, whose bombast kept getting ahead of his thoughts. As in his complaint that Ireland was "overflowing with absentee landlords." Also: "The cup of Irish misfortunes has been overflowing for centuries, and it's not full yet." But he had great hopes: "All along the untrodden path of the future, I can see the footprints of an unseen hand."
An Irish bull is easier to illustrate than define. The term refers to any statement that, though we usually have a pretty good idea of what the writer meant to convey, becomes nonsensical when taken literally.