“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown…” — Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex)
I imagine that many people’s objections to Rep. Barton’s claim would be that the real tragedy is the deaths and devastation caused by the BP oil spill. But politics aside, my ears perked up at this, not because I object so wholeheartedly to the claim but because I don’t even understand the claim. “Tragedy of the first order,” “tragedy of the first degree,” these I have heard and can make sense of, but “first proportion”? — misstatement, coining a phrase, or just new to me?
Remember kids, the possibilities of language run the gambit [sic].