Questão de Língua Inglesa

01. ........ September 11, 2001, at 8:46 A.M., a 02. hijacked airliner crashed into the north tower 03. of the World Trade Center in New York. At 04. 9:03 A.M. a second plane crashed into the 05. south tower. The resulting infernos caused 06. the buildings to collapse, the south tower 07. after burning for an hour and two minutes, the 08. north tower twenty-three minutes after 09. that. The attacks were masterminded by 10. Osama bin Laden in an attempt to intimidate 11. the United States and unite Muslims for a 12. restoration of the caliphate. 13. 9/11, as the happenings of that day are now 14. called, has set off debates on a vast array of 15. topics. But I would like to explore a lesser- 16. known debate triggered by it. Exactly how 17. many events took place in New York on that 18. morning ........ September? 19. It could be argued that the answer is one. 20. The attacks on the two buildings were part of 21. a single plan conceived by one man in service 22. of a single agenda. They unfolded ........ a few 23. minutes and yards of each other, targeting 24. the parts of a complex with a single name, 25. design, and owner. And they launched a 26. single chain of military and political events in 27. their aftermath. 28. Or it could be argued that the answer is two. 29. The towers were distinct collections of glass 30. and steel separated by an expanse of space, 31. and they were hit at different times and went 32. out of existence at different times. The 33. amateur video that showed the second plane 34. closing in on the south tower as the north 35. tower billowed with smoke makes the twoness 36. unmistakable: while one event was frozen in 37. the past, the other loomed in the future. 28 38. The gravity of 9/11 would seem to make this 39. discussion frivolous to the point of impudence, 40. a matter of mere "semantics," as we say, with 41. its implication of splitting hairs. But the relation of language to our inner and outer 42. 43. worlds is a matter of intellectual fascination 44. and real-world importance. 45. "importance" is often hard to 46. quantify, ........ this case I can put an exact 47. value on it: 3,5 billion dollars. That was the 48. sum in a legal dispute for the insurance 49. payout to Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of 50. the World Trade Center site. Silverstein’s 51. insurance policies stipulated a maximum 52. reimbursement for each destructive "event." 53. If 9/11 comprised a single event, he stood to 54. receive 3,5 billion dollars; if two, he stood to 55. receive 7 billion. In the trials, the attorneys 56. disputed the applicable meaning of the term 57. event. The lawyers for the leaseholder defined 58. it in physical terms (two collapses); those for 59. the insurance companies defined it in mental 60. terms (one plot). There is nothing "mere" 61. about semantics! Adapted from: PINKER, Steven. The Stuff of Thought. New York: Penguin, 2007. p. 1-2.