George Bush’s Malapropisms

* Your “Get a Grip” editorial (Aug. 24) discusses George W. Bush’s unhappy way with words but seeks to excuse this with the phrase “But most people’s offhand speech is sloppy.”

The way a person speaks presents a window into the quality of his or her mind. I worked for a major corporation, and was always impressed by the way that its senior executives could address an audience, without notes, using a series of well-constructed sentences that presented a train of coherent thought. Now, unless your father is a major stockholder, you don’t get to be a senior executive in a major corporation unless you are reasonably bright, and surely we should expect similar abilities in our elected representatives.

By this standard, Bush does not measure up.

R.F. JACKSON

Arroyo Grande

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Re “Bush Tallies Up the Trillions, Trips,” Aug. 23: The Times reported that Bush had difficulties with his “rhetorical abilities.” It would appear this is not an isolated case of confusion on the part of the mainline media but appears be a common fault in some of us.

Many of our citizens appear to think that if a statement is delivered in a slick, “I feel your pain” manner, it is a valid statement. For example statements such as “You could be a winner,” “I invented the Internet,” “I discovered the Love Canal” or the classic “I never had sex with that woman” are sometimes not completely accurate. Articulate and accurate are not synonyms.

JAMES S. HART

Redondo Beach

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Advice for George W.--don’t mess with taxes.

MICHAEL LUBIC

Pasadena