Recently, Newt Gingrich apologized in well-rehearsed, if poorly delivered Spanish an ill-advised comment he made in reference to a Sonia Sotomayor ruling, doubling the problem he created when he said that “bilingual education is teaching the language of the ghetto.” In saying such, Gingrich possibly offended millions of Spanish speaking people in the United States.

Keith Olbermann in commenting on Gingrich’s political “double gaffe,” said: “He (Gingrich) even used the active tense in his apology.”

What Olbermann meant to say was active voice. “Voice inflects a verb to show whether its subject is the doer of the action indicated or is acted upon.” (John B. Opdycke, Harper’s English Grammar). Olbermann was pointing out that Gingrich, instead of inflecting attention away from his gaffe by saying something like, “…poor judgement was made” or words that effect, said, “I made a poor statement” or words to that effect.

Very accurate of Olberman to catch this fine point. It indicates that Gingrich was well-aware of his blunder, but he did mean active voice, not tense. If Olbermann had meant tense, (time of action), surely it was too late for Gingrich.

Tags: keith olbermann, newt gingrich, tense, voice