I'm a judgmental person when it comes to language. Clear writing is an indicator of clear thinking. Knowing the meaning of words one says is another.
Which is why, when it came public today that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan verbally chastised the prosecutors in Senator Ted Steven's corruption trial using a grotesquely mixed metaphor -- one which the Judge should have commanded -- I came to the conclusion that he is either a screaming idiot in Stevens' pocket, or a brilliant linguist winking at the psoecution.
The quote, from WaPost:
"The government is treading in some very shallow water," U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan told prosecutors from the Justice Department's Office of Public Integrity. "I am just flabbergasted."
....
Reacting to a defense motion to throw out the case, Sullivan said he was distressed to learn that prosecutors had allowed Robert "Rocky" Williams, a former Veco employee, to return to Alaska last week even though he had been subpoenaed to testify.
...
The Justice Department lawyers apologized for sending Williams home without alerting defense attorneys or the judge. They did not disclose why Williams returned to Alaska but alluded to personal or health problems. They said they no longer thought they needed him to prove the case.
"To tread water" is a metaphor, implying someone is holding a position, which they are only capable of doing temporarily until they are exhausted, at which time they are going to drown, due to the deep water under them.
The judge possibly intended to say "on thin grounds" -- an oft-used judicial phrase which means that the argument in favor of a position is precarious and tentative, with the possibility that it will crack under their feet and they, with their arguments, will fall through to oblivion.
But "to tread in shallow water" is not a common metaphor at all. A literal reading, contra-indicated by the judge's "flabbergasted" response, implies that the prosecution is doing just fine. To be in shallow water poses no threat, and treading in shallow water would mean that the prosecution could stop treading, and have no concern for drowning, as they could simply stand on the ground beneath them. It implies their arguments may appear tentative, but are actually (unbeknownst to them) well-founded.
If there is a vocation in the world in which careful use of the English language is more important than a judge, I do not know what vocation that might be. That the presiding judge in Senator Stevens' corruption trial doesn't know that a metaphor he (presumably frequently) uses has the opposite literal reading than what he clearly intended, means the judge does not think carefully about his words.
And if a judge doesn't think carefully about his words, he likely doesn't think carefully about the arguments put before him in his courtroom either. He's probably a screaming idiot.
Damn.
However, an alternative reading is that the judge is actually a brilliant linguist, that he believes the prosecution did nothing deeply wrong, and that the defense lawyers have a weak but frustratingly allowable argument -- and he knows the defense lawyers are screaming idiots, and he decided to mess with them by acting "flabbergasted" (an arcane term whose modern usage is more often ironic than literal) when he is, in fact, nothing of the sort. So, to placate the defense, while winking at the prosecution, Judge Sullivan mocks outrage, saying "You are treading in some very shallow water," adding "I'm flabbergasted," for style points, and everyone in the courtroom hears what they want to hear.