At this point in the WORDS ON THE LINE "Surprising Sentences" series, you have likely seen how character and context drive the unexpectedness. For examples of character, our jaws would drop if the blustering and cocky Muhammad Ali had said in his lifetime, "I wish I were the greatest" or if the regal and prim Queen Elizabeth II exclaimed, "Yo, what's up, baby!" As for context, we would be stunned if a stage actress in the middle of a climactic scene hollered, "That jerk in the audience better stop coughing, or I'll personally kick his butt out of the theater," or to hear someone trapped in a building fire say, "I wonder what time it is."
Character and context can also collaborate in a collision that creates consternation. Take United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's famous speech of March 31, 1968, an election year, when he said:
Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.
That sentence, which Johnson said on live television from his desk in the Oval Office, was a shocker for many reasons. For one, it came in the last minute of a 4,116-word, 40-minute speech that began, "Good evening, my fellow Americans. Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia." His audience was expecting to hear about the USA's political and diplomatic strategy for ending the Vietnam War, not about the political plans of this tall Texan who rarely strayed from the point. Also, he had won the 1964 presidential election against Republican Barry Goldwater by an overwhelming majority of 16 million votes, 61.1 percent of the electorate, taking 44 states and 486 of 538 electoral votes a year after assuming office of the presidency amidst the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It would be difficult to overtake a sitting president known for his confidence and cunning in striking bipartisan deals in the middle of a war.
While in hindsight, it might be easy to say the Vietnam War had become increasingly unpopular in the United States as Johnson had spent most of his term escalating it with endless bombings and ground troop deployments, those words nevertheless stunned his audience that night 53 years ago.
