Elephants, donkeys, and rats. (Letters)."Dirty RATS: Campaign ad may have swayed voters subliminally" (SN: 2/22/03, p. 116) fails to mention the very plausible explanation that was offered at the time by those who produced the Republican campaign ad. Namely, that they were using a graphics-software program that produces the effect in question for any word. The validity of the research isn't affected by whether the appearance of "rats" in this manner was deliberate or not, but the validity of statements made in presenting this research certainly is. Talk of "negative campaigning Negative campaigning is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies. " implicitly accuses the Republicans of deliberate use of subliminal messages, but that has never been established VINCENT VINCENT Vital Information Necessary Centralized (movie, The Black Hole) FITZPATRICK, MANVEL, N.D. In the article, the string XXXX XXXX Army (Graphical Representation/Army) XXXX Fourex (Australian beer) XXXX Four X Level of Decontamination is called "a presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. neutral nonword." But the string XXX is standard for "poisonous," and a string of Xs is symbolic for what is crossed out or forbidden. Another example is the X- to XXXX-rated movie. ELIHU LUBKIN, SHOREWOOD, WIS. Researcher Joel Weinberger says that XXXX has been used in previous studies by many researchers. He admits, however, that he didn't think of the adultmovie connotation con·no·ta·tion n. 1. The act or process of connoting. 2. a. An idea or meaning suggested by or associated with a word or thing: of XXXX. Future research may instead use strings of random letters.--S. PERKINS |
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