Under disendorsement, writers/speakers distances themselves from the utterance, indicating that they take no responsibility for its reliability. This is commonly done by the use of a quoting verb such as `to claim' and `allege'. Thus,
Tickner said regardless of the result, the royal commission was a waste of money and he would proceed with a separate inquiry into the issue headed by Justice Jane Matthews. His attack came as the Aboriginal women involved in the demanded a female minister examine the religious beliefs they claim are inherent in their fight against a bridge to the island near Goolwa in South Australia. (OzNews)
Here, of course, the journalist distances him/herself from - or `disendorses' - the proposition put by the Aboriginal women that they have religious reasons to oppose the building of the bridge.
Similarly,
Even in jail there are many rumours circulating about Tyson. One is that he has converted to Islam and will be known as Malik Abdul Aziz. Another rumour is that he is engaged to a childhood sweetheart and he is regularly allowed to have sex with the girl about to become Mrs Tyson-or Mrs Aziz. He reportedly said, We're keeping the date of the wedding secret. I don't want people to know her name (UKMags)
One quite common and interesting mechanism for more indirectly indicating dis-endorsement is to characterise the utterance as unexpected or surprising.
Surprisingly, McGuinness is especially scathing about `the chattering classes', of which he has long been a member. (Dissent: p.6, Number 4, Summer 2000/2001)
Disendorsement can, however, go beyond such `distancing' to the point of absolute rejection or denial of the attributed proposition. Thus,
More recent evaluation in the field convinces me that the ANU team are seriously in error: the age of the burial is considerably less than 62,000 years. In this context, the claim that "this more than trebles the date for humanity's first arrival on the continent" is sheer nonsense. (The Australian, Opinion Pages, 10/01/2001)
