Arnold Zwicky's Blog

The U.S. has such a thing, and its name is a compound with three possibly relevant parsings into constituents (for in the glosses conveys something like ‘to investigate’):

(1)  [ Congressional ]  [ [ Brain Injury ] [ Task Force ] ]

‘ a task force, associated with Congress, for brain injury‘

(2)  [ [ Congressional Brain ]  [ Injury ] ] [ Task Force ]

‘a task force for injury to the Congressional brain‘

(3)  [ [ Congressional ] [ Brain Injury ] ] [Task Force ]

‘a task force for Congressional brain injury‘

(1) is the intended reading. (2) has an entertaining sense involving a Congressional brain, a brain that Congress has (or is otherwise associated with). (3) involves (a) brain injury that is associated in some way with Congress. I’m much taken with readings (2) and (3), especially (2), which reminded me of the October 1980 Doonesbury sequence “The Mysterious World of Reagan’s Brain”.

The intended reading is entirely clear, but sportive readers will play with the alternatives

The CBITF is entirely serious, of course. Here’s the notice of a recent event:

On the task force, from Rep. Bill Pascarell’s (NJ 9th) website:

Approximately 1.4 million Americans experience Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) each year and an estimated 3.2 million Americans are living with long-term, severe disabilities as a result of brain injury. Another 360,000 men and women are estimated to have been inflicted by a TBI in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The national cost of TBI is estimated to be $60 billion annually. That is why I founded the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force in 2001. Co-Chaired by Rep. Todd Platts of Pennsylvania, the task force will serve as a clearinghouse of information for Congress and the public. It will promote full funding for the TBI Act and other brain injury research programs, and provide guidance to federal agencies on policies and proposed rulemakings.

Mission: To further education and awareness of brain injury (incidence, prevalence, prevention, and treatment) and support funding for basic and applied research on brain injury rehabilitation and development of a cure.

This entry was posted on April 6, 2017 at 6:21 am and is filed under Compounds, Constituency, Language and medicine, Morphology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.