I think (a.) is wholly grammatically accurate, and I’d expect people to point out “but that was a fairly paltry deregulation”. A regulation of the market has been eliminated, therefore there has been deregulation in the market, but the market is not deregulated.

I think (b.) is true and POTENTIALLY misleading if you think the public is dumb as a post. As per my response to (a.), deregulation is an act that has been performed upon the market. Another example: “Joey kicked the ball”, and “the ball has been kicked”. Perfectly acceptable. Now, I say it’s “potentially” misleading because “deregulated” is both an adjective and a past tense verb. In this case it is clearly a past tense verb. If the public is as dumb as a post, they MAY think it is an adjective. But their misunderstanding does not make it inaccurate. I think this is very unlikely. Anyone who actually thinks there are no regulations in the American economy probably isn’t going to be engaging in a discussion about the American economy. Essentially, if you know the definition of “regulation”, you’re probably intelligent enough to know that there are regulations. You have to assume a great deal of stupidity on the part of listeners to argue that they’d be confused about this.

As for (c.) – I think “the market was deregulated” in this sentence is accurate for the same reason I thought (b.) was accurate. The rest of the sentence has absolutely nothing to do with word choice anymore – it’s horrendous analysis and should be criticized on that basis. I don’t see how that extremely poorly reasoned argument has anything to do with accurate word choice. It’s a logical fallacy not a grammatical or linguistic fallacy.

I also want to comment on this statement: “I hold statement “b” to be both false and misleading, because a market cannot be regulated and deregulated at the same time.”

I don’t think that is what (b.) is saying. The market “is” regulated, but it “has been” deregulated. “Deregulated” is an action that has been performed on it in the past, “regulated” is a word that currently describes the market.

As for your “-ate” endings, I’m not sure why “-ate” and “-tion” implies what you’re saying it implies. Another example you guys like: liberate – to free someone. Let’s say you were being held prisoner in a foreign country and the Marines came and broke you out – they “liberated” you. But obviously that doesn’t mean you have complete freedom. You still end up back in the U.S. where you’ve gotta pay taxes and follow all these nasty regulations. You were “liberated” but you weren’t completely “liberated”. There is an implied delimitation as to what you were liberated from, and nobody is dumb enough to here “MichaelSmith was liberated by the Marines today” and think “wow that’s sweet – he’s completely free he doesn’t have to pay taxes anymore!”. No. It’s understood there’s a limited sense in which he is liberated, just like it’s understood that there’s a limited sense in which the market is deregulated.

I think (a.) is wholly grammatically accurate, and I’d expect people to point out “but that was a fairly paltry deregulation”. A regulation of the market has been eliminated, therefore there has been deregulation in the market, but the market is not deregulated.

I think (b.) is true and POTENTIALLY misleading if you think the public is dumb as a post. As per my response to (a.), deregulation is an act that has been performed upon the market. Another example: “Joey kicked the ball”, and “the ball has been kicked”. Perfectly acceptable. Now, I say it’s “potentially” misleading because “deregulated” is both an adjective and a past tense verb. In this case it is clearly a past tense verb. If the public is as dumb as a post, they MAY think it is an adjective. But their misunderstanding does not make it inaccurate. I think this is very unlikely. Anyone who actually thinks there are no regulations in the American economy probably isn’t going to be engaging in a discussion about the American economy. Essentially, if you know the definition of “regulation”, you’re probably intelligent enough to know that there are regulations. You have to assume a great deal of stupidity on the part of listeners to argue that they’d be confused about this.

As for (c.) – I think “the market was deregulated” in this sentence is accurate for the same reason I thought (b.) was accurate. The rest of the sentence has absolutely nothing to do with word choice anymore – it’s horrendous analysis and should be criticized on that basis. I don’t see how that extremely poorly reasoned argument has anything to do with accurate word choice. It’s a logical fallacy not a grammatical or linguistic fallacy.

I also want to comment on this statement: “I hold statement “b” to be both false and misleading, because a market cannot be regulated and deregulated at the same time.”

I don’t think that is what (b.) is saying. The market “is” regulated, but it “has been” deregulated. “Deregulated” is an action that has been performed on it in the past, “regulated” is a word that currently describes the market.

As for your “-ate” endings, I’m not sure why “-ate” and “-tion” implies what you’re saying it implies. Another example you guys like: liberate – to free someone. Let’s say you were being held prisoner in a foreign country and the Marines came and broke you out – they “liberated” you. But obviously that doesn’t mean you have complete freedom. You still end up back in the U.S. where you’ve gotta pay taxes and follow all these nasty regulations. You were “liberated” but you weren’t completely “liberated”. There is an implied delimitation as to what you were liberated from, and nobody is dumb enough to here “MichaelSmith was liberated by the Marines today” and think “wow that’s sweet – he’s completely free he doesn’t have to pay taxes anymore!”. No. It’s understood there’s a limited sense in which he is liberated, just like it’s understood that there’s a limited sense in which the market is deregulated.

Suppose we have a market to which government has applied 3 regulations:

1) Every business owner must purchase a business license from the government at a price of $100 every year.

2) Every business owner must pay all his employees time and a half for all work done in excess of 40 hours in a week.

3) All products sold in this market must be sold at the same, fixed price set by the government, with the government free to change this price at any time, up to and including weekly or daily changes.

So we have three regulations in this market. How would you evaluate the following statements, made to a public that is not versed in the details of this market’s regulation:

a) Regulation “1″ is lifted and then public is told, “Deregulation has occurred in this market.”

b) Regulation 1 is lifted, and the public is told, “This market has been deregulated.”

c) Regulations 1 & 2 have been lifted, and after 6 months the public is told, “This market was deregulated and it is still racked with problems, therefore deregulation has been shown not to work.

I hold that “a” is misleading, because anyone who knows the details of this market will realize that regulation “1″ is economically trivial, and therefore its removal is irrelevant. I realize that you are trying to make the case that statement “1″ is accurate — and that that is the very issue we are debating — but I’m just wondering whether you will also defend it as not being misleading.

I hold statement “b” to be both false and misleading, because a market cannot be regulated and deregulated at the same time.

I hold statement “c” to be both wrong and intellectually dishonest. To remove regulations that one knows to be economically irrelevant while leaving intact a regulation as draconian as total government price controls — and then conclude that “deregulation doesn’t work” — is indefensible.

According to your interpretation, however, that statement is accurate. Do you also hold it to be not misleading and not dishonest.

Just curious as to your interpretations.

By the way, in my last comment where I noted the common prefixes and suffixes used in the example of “activated” and “deactivated” versus “regulated” and “deregulated”, I forgot to note that they also obviously share the suffix “-ion”. Just an oversight on my part. No intention to avoid a comparison of the meaning of “deactivation” versus “deregulation”.