Forward, January 29th, 1999
Philologos Forward 01-29-1999 ON LANGUAGE: To Be or Not To Be
`It all depends on your definition of what the word `is' is." First uttered by President Clinton in his grand jury testimony last summer, this sentence has already entered the folklore and become part of the humor of the English language. No doubt it will be used in quips and jokes a hundred years from now by people having no inkling of its original context or of who exactly William Jefferson Clinton was.
And yet, although the president may simply have been trying to wriggle out of an embarrassing question, the use of the verb "...
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