August 27, 2005
"There is strength and force in short words, words that blast and boom, throb and thump, clank and chime, hiss and buzz and zoom. There is grace and charm in short words like lull and hush and purr. There are short lush words like dank, muck and drench; and short dry ones like crisp, parch and husk…give me words that pry and push, that slash and hack, that cut and clip, that chip and saw. Words are fun to fuss with, to stir and mix, and make work for you.” (Written decades ago by H. Phelps Gates of the Christian Science Monitor.)
My sentiments exactly, Mr.Gates. We could have used you during the Presidential Campaign of 2004.
Never have I heard such words as I did during Election ‘04.
Soon, I came to realize that politics, indeed, has its own language. Some of that language is new this time around.
Did you notice, too? Perhaps not; slick words do tend to roll glibly over us.
You may have missed some of them.
Oh, those silver-tongued devils!
Although determined to learn this exotic new language, I am forced to admit I do not speak their tongue well.
Increasingly, however, I became intrigued by the words which peppered the campaign’s printed and spoken language (as though we know what those words mean).
Am I the only one who ran for the dictionary?
At any rate, they were all doing it--the news media, pundits, and countless authors, each with a brand new book filled with weighty analyses and theory.
So, I experimented with this phenomenon by watching all the major television networks and cable news networks, listened to talk radio, and bought or borrowed the latest political books.
I was so hooked I rarely cooked. (Forgot to mention broadcasters tend to rhyme, badly. I might add.)
I also noticed during my poll of pundits and politicians that they tended to use alliteration a lot.
Hence, my Primer for those Puzzled by Politics, Perturbed by Pundits, and Perplexed by Pontificators.
Note: alliteration was done mostly by telegenic (looking good on TV) news talk show hosts.
In light of all this, unabashedly, I offer a primer for the pained patrons of Politics 2004:
Try checking these out for yourself: fatuous, desultory, pleonexia, and impunity. (I jotted these down in just one day listening to talk radio. Have a dictionary nearby when you listen. I’m warning you! Talk radio is great fun, granted, but one has to have a thesaurus handy.)
My all-time favorite is this wonderful word, “bollixed.” Turns out, it means “messed up.”
It is actually a corruption of a Gaelic word. If you have been “bollixed” by someone that means that person has gone out of his/her way to mess you up.
Aristotle is credited with saying that “man is by nature a political animal”, and he said that a long, long time ago.
Not looking for much to change on that point, but I have come, to agree with Charles De Gaulle. America sort of liked him.
Remember? That was when America liked France, too.
De Gaulle said this about politics and all that goes with it, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
And perhaps too serious a matter to be left to the pundits and pronouncers of news.
