parse, compartmentalize

Letters: Parsing the Sotomayor Hearings

Suddenly, Bernie Madoff is a realist. He may be going down hard, but his guilty-plea statement reveals a clear strategy to try to draw heat to himself and keep members of his family from following in his shackled footsteps.

As always, Jack Flack is happy to parse Mr. Madoff’s plea statement.

Madoff: Your Honor, for many years up until my arrest on December 11, 2008, I operated a Ponzi scheme…

Translation: My strategy is to actively embrace my guilt…

Madoff: … through the investment advisory side of my business, Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC….

Translation: …and to compartmentalize that guilt to that side of the business in hopes that my family won’t wind up being indicted.

parse
v., parsed, pars·ing, pars·es. v.tr.

1. To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.
2. To describe (a word) by stating its part of speech, form, and syntactical relationships in a sentence.
3. 1. To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components: “What are we missing by parsing the behavior of chimpanzees into the conventional categories recognized largely from our own behavior?” (Stephen Jay Gould).
   2. To make sense of; comprehend: I simply couldn't parse what you just said.
4. Computer Science. To analyze or separate (input, for example) into more easily processed components.

v.intr.

To admit of being parsed: sentences that do not parse easily.

[Probably from Middle English pars, part of speech, from Latin pars (ōrātiōnis), part (of speech).]

parser pars'er n.

compartmentalize

Meaning #1: a mild state of dissociation
Synonym: compartmentalisation

Meaning #2: the act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type
Synonyms: categorization, categorisation, classification, compartmentalisation, assortment