Thursday, August 16, 2012

An Interesting Week In Words




Divisive and Deleterious Descriptors

·         This week, Governor Romney used the words vitriolic and vituperative in the same sentence describing the tone of President Obama’s campaign.  I’m guessing that vituperative was found right next to vitriolic in the dictionary when someone was writing that speech.  The result made the Governor sound like Mike Tyson does when he tries to sound smart.   I probably would have used contumelious, scurrilous or truculent for the second word, and avoided the awkward letter V alliteration thing.

Danville

·         The President says Joe Biden’s comments in Danville Virginia regarding Republican plans for Wall Street were a distraction to the substantive message.  Vice President Biden is known for being a loose cannon and for his frequent “gaffes”.  But in 2008 he was selected as the President’s running mate to balance the ticket, because of his experience, particularly as a statesman.   I have to wonder, would he make similar gaffes, however well-intentioned, during heated negotiations with some crazy third world leader?  He acts like a drunken uncle, but HE’s the VICE PRESIDENT. 

            

WTF

·         Speaking of words, “f-bomb” is now in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Surprisingly, it is NOT yet listed as a synonym of the word for which it is most well-known as a substitute, or vice versa. 

Synonyms the dictionary does list for “f-bomb” are:  frick, eff, bleep, flip, farg, fork, phelps, flock, flick, flog, freak, frig, filth/forget (used mostly in “Scarface” film edits for Television), flarn (used mostly by Bill Cosby), falk (TV actor), fokken (Dutch), and fókka (Swedish).

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