Obama, Jesus and the first person singular
Barack Obama: Yes on Jesus, no on the first-person singular.
From Politico:
As president,Barack Obama has mentioned Jesus Christ in a number of high-profile public speeches — something his predecessor George W. Bush rarely did in such settings, even though Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity.
From the Language Log blog:
I took the transcript of Obama’s first press conference (from 2/9/2009), and found that he used ‘I’ 162 times in 7,775 total words, for a rate of 2.08%. He also used ‘me’ 8 times and ‘my’ 35 times, for a total first-person singular pronoun count of 205 in 7,775 words, or a rate of 2.64%.
…
This comparison suggests that George W. Bush, in his early press conferences, used first-person singular pronouns about 60-70% more often than Barack Obama did, while Bill Clinton, in the comparable events, used first-person singular pronouns about 50% more often than Obama did.
That second post, incidentally, was a response to the ineffable George F. Will, who began his Sunday column by noting that the president “is inordinately fond of the first-person singular pronoun.”
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