Orally, But Not Per Os
From an article by Suzanne Garment on Hillary Clinton’s private email account:
“So much for the historical record — and for the idea that you can force people to make their private thoughts public. Leave aside the question of whether it is a good idea to do so. If you try, you may be sure that those people will find ways around your high-mindedness.
They will use Post-It Notes. They will establish private email domains. They will do business verbally instead of in writing. The public record they create will be sanitized into something incomprehensible that requires a machine designed by Alan Turing to decode.”
“Verbally” instead of “in writing”? What does Suzanne Garment think “verbally” means that places it in opposition to “in writing”? And what makes her, and tens of millions of others, so noticeably shy away from using the word “orally”? We all know the answer to that, but wouldn’t you like to hear it from them directly, and possibly even orally?