"Pundents?"

[jbuck919]

Yes folks, we have a new Sarah Palin coinage, though her use of that word (she meant "pundits") in her video responding to the reaction to the shootings is not what the news programs are talking about. Anyone care to guess the portmanteau for this one? It's probably "pendant" and "pundit" which is a simple tongue confusion but makes her sound vaguely like a poet, rather than "pungent pundit" which is almost worthy of Lewis Carroll and therefore unlikely to come from Sarah Palin.

[piston]

Actually, the word "pundents" is all over the Google search map. We live in a very "creative writing" world: pundents, respundents, indepundents -- it's all justified once it appears on google!

[piston]

Which is an interesting linguistic development given that the printing press revolution had precisely the opposite effect: to standardize spelling which until then had remained locally, regionally, even individually diverse.

[jbuck919]

Actually, the word "pundents" is all over the Google search map. We live in a very "creative writing" world: pundents, respundents, indepundents -- it's all justified once it appears on google!

Oh well, I suppose "nucular" is there too, and that's been a bipartisan sin.

[diegobueno]

And was there no one on her staff to warn her against the phrase "blood libel"??

Either she is deeply antisemitic or profoundly stupid. My guess is the latter, but I also have this sickening feeling that she placed it there deliberately in order to say something outrageous to bring another round of censure, to which she can then turn around into another round of self-righteous liberal-bashing, because she knows her support base eats that kind of thing up. "What, me antisemitic? Mercy me, wherever did you get that idea, you shameless liberal? I never intended that meaning when I said 'blood libel'. Oh, these evil people who attack me all the time!"

[NancyElla]

Well, "pundit" + "pedant" = "pundant". Usage: "Anyone who doesn't like the way I talk is just a dirty little pundant, and an effete intellectual snob to boot!"

Mirror-image hiring explains why there's no staffer to save her from herself.

[jbuck919]

Well, "pundit" + "pedant" = "pundant".

Yeah, I like it.

Usage: "Anyone who doesn't like the way I talk is just a dirty little pundant, and an effete intellectual snob to boot!"

She would probably say "effetist" (effete+elitist, influenced by "defeatist").

Mirror-image hiring explains why there's no staffer to save her from herself.

Wow, two great insights in one post! We've missed ya, Nancy Ella!

[Madame]

Maybe NOT so dumb ...

Norm Crosby, king of malaprops, made a pretty good living speaking from his 'diagram' and drinking 'decapitated' coffee.

We've been chuckling over malapropisms and other speech errors since I can remember:

"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory."
Mrs. Malaprop in "The Rivals"

"Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons."
Constable Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing"

"The hookeries and massageries...the whole world is turning into a regular Sodom and Glocca Morra."
"A woman doctor is only good for women's problems...like your groinocology."
"I ain't a man of carnival instinctuals like you."
"Irene Lorenzo, Queen of the Women's Lubrication Movement."
Archie Bunker in "All In The Family"

"We heard the ocean is infatuated with sharks"
Stan Laurel

"My uncle had a problem with his probate and he had to take these big pills and drink lots of water."
Roger Rabbit

"Create a little dysentery among the ranks."
Christopher Moltisanti in "The Sopranos"

"He didn't confess. You're just trying to make me admit something I didn't do. I know all about reverse biology, buddy. I'm not an idiot."
Earl Hickey in "My Name is Earl"

"Quit your procrasterbating and go talk to him."
Virginia Chance in "Raising Hope"


I say, bring it on

[living_stradivarius]

Maybe NOT so dumb ...

Norm Crosby, king of malaprops, made a pretty good living speaking from his 'diagram' and drinking 'decapitated' coffee.

We've been chuckling over malapropisms and other speech errors since I can remember:

"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory."
Mrs. Malaprop in "The Rivals"

"Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons."
Constable Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing"

"The hookeries and massageries...the whole world is turning into a regular Sodom and Glocca Morra."
"A woman doctor is only good for women's problems...like your groinocology."
"I ain't a man of carnival instinctuals like you."
"Irene Lorenzo, Queen of the Women's Lubrication Movement."
Archie Bunker in "All In The Family"

"We heard the ocean is infatuated with sharks"
Stan Laurel

"My uncle had a problem with his probate and he had to take these big pills and drink lots of water."
Roger Rabbit

"Create a little dysentery among the ranks."
Christopher Moltisanti in "The Sopranos"

"He didn't confess. You're just trying to make me admit something I didn't do. I know all about reverse biology, buddy. I'm not an idiot."
Earl Hickey in "My Name is Earl"

"Quit your procrasterbating and go talk to him."
Virginia Chance in "Raising Hope"


I say, bring it on

All the above are in Entertainment. Palin ought to consider a career change... oh wait, Tina Fey has that covered.
How about we have a contest? Best malapropism wins a candy.

[HoustonDavid]

I think Colleen has that one unwrapped in spates. Got a lot of chuckles in that list, but
as Henry says, it's Entertainment, and written by the pro-bates.

[jbuck919]

"Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons."
Constable Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing"

My favorite in Shakespeare is from The Merchant of Venice (working from memory here), where Shylock's clown-servant says to another character "My master doth expect your reproach [meaning "approach"] to which the response is "Aye, and I his."

Palin's mistakes are not malapropisms, though after this I can hardly wait until she makes one.

[Mark Harwood]

Surely you guys are familiar with strangled eggs for breakfast? Crippled onions? Wormy 'cellist?

[Madame]

I think Colleen has that one unwrapped in spates. Got a lot of chuckles in that list, but
as Henry says, it's Entertainment, and written by the pro-bates.

And you think politicians AREN'T entertainers?

OK, I'm forest to continue:

It was reported in New Scientist that an office worker described a colleague as "a vast suppository of information".

Time reported Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as warning his country against "upsetting the apple tart"

"It's great to be back on terracotta!" — John Prescott, a British politician

"Mathematics are one of the fundamentaries of educationalizing our youths." — George W. Bush

"Mr Speaker, you are the anecdote to verbal diarrhoea — Tobias Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East, UK

Philosopher Donald Davidson wrote in his essay, "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs", that malapropisms demonstrate that competence in a language is not a matter of applying rigid rules to the decoding of utterances. Rather, that in interpreting others, people constantly modify their own understanding of our language.
(that's as good as any spin I've ever seen )

[jbuck919]

I have to be fair here, before Barry or JackC gets on my case. In an extemporaneous moment at his appearance in Arizona, Obama praised the young aide to had "tendered" to the wounded congresswoman.

[piston]

We are all being educationalized by the great linguistical diversificaying of our nation....

[Madame]

We are all being educationalized by the great linguistical diversificaying of our nation....

I grok

[THEHORN]

Well what do you expect from Sarah Palin ? And people have the nerve to
sneer at Obama for his alleged reliance on a teleprompter?
The thought of Sarah as President makes me delirious.I don't know whether it would be horrifying or hilarious.

[living_stradivarius]

I think Colleen has that one unwrapped in spates. Got a lot of chuckles in that list, but
as Henry says, it's Entertainment, and written by the pro-bates.

And you think politicians AREN'T entertainers?

They're not supposed to be. Not what James Madison had in mind.

[Madame]

I think Colleen has that one unwrapped in spates. Got a lot of chuckles in that list, but
as Henry says, it's Entertainment, and written by the pro-bates.

And you think politicians AREN'T entertainers?

They're not supposed to be. Not what James Madison had in mind.

Yet ... we laugh

[living_stradivarius]

I think Colleen has that one unwrapped in spates. Got a lot of chuckles in that list, but
as Henry says, it's Entertainment, and written by the pro-bates.

And you think politicians AREN'T entertainers?

They're not supposed to be. Not what James Madison had in mind.

Yet ... we laugh

As the world burns around us, yes

[Madame]

Well what do you expect from Sarah Palin ? And people have the nerve to
sneer at Obama for his alleged reliance on a teleprompter?
The thought of Sarah as President makes me delirious.I don't know whether it would be horrifying or hilarious.

Relax ... ain't gonna happen.

[jbuck919]

Well what do you expect from Sarah Palin ? And people have the nerve to
sneer at Obama for his alleged reliance on a teleprompter?
The thought of Sarah as President makes me delirious.I don't know whether it would be horrifying or hilarious.

Relax ... ain't gonna happen.

No, but I must say that I didn't breathe a sigh of relief until "blood libel."

[Wallingford]

REALLY--the whole situation's hopeless enough to make one consider "term paper ghosting" as a vocation!

[HoustonDavid]

Well, at least most of the people around here are capable and qualified to write term
papers, and probably have. Sarah Palin would have to pay for it, as she probably did
when "writing" her book.