Hey! Did everyone hear the latest about Palin?
Posted on 07/19/2010 10:42:18 PM PDT by American Dream 246
Yesterday, Sarah Palin offered her opinion on a proposal to build a mosque in the vicinity of the September 11th site. Her words:
“Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.”
This tweet is a pundit’s dream, a perfect storm for mud-slinging, flak, fuss, hurrahs, miffs, polemics, rows, rumpuses, and maybe some discussion.
Dictionary.com only cares about one word in the former Alaska governor’s message. Refudiate. Go ahead and look up refudiate on our site. Or any dictionary Web site for that matter. Nada, zilch.
There are a few ways to look at Sarah Palin’s use of “refudiate.” It’s clear that refute and repudiate are lurking in the background somewhere. One view is that it’s a non-word and sets a bad example for students of the English language. Palin’s response:
“‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”
“Misunderestimate” is a famous coinage by former President George W. Bush. “Wee-wee’d up” is a lexical creation by President Barack Obama. (Check out our previous take on a flub of Obama’s.)
Say what you will about her invocation of Shakespeare, but Palin raises a classic debate among linguists and lexicographers (people who create dictionaries). Dictionaries have always faced the dilemma whether to be prescriptive or descriptive. Is it the job of a dictionary to direct how words should be used, spelled, or pronounced, or should a dictionary simply document the current usage of the language?
When Palin, Bush and Obama coined their respective terms, they added neologisms (new words) to the messy, changing phenomenon we agree to call English. Whether a word transforms from a novelty into a standard part of our lexicon is a mysterious joy beyond the power of any politician, editor or individual to predict.
Commenter ”Pete Buick” deserves mention for pointing out a wonderful related term: malapropism, “an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.” It’s up to you if you consider “refudiate” a malapropism or a simple corrigendum.
Weigh in: Do you think refudiate will end up in the dictionary? What do you make of Palin’s defense?
>>> Google is NOT the arbiter of truth I mean. If you google this word now, all you get is story on Palin
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Google allows you to set a range of dates for a search. Inspired by your post I checked this and set the range to end on Jan 1, 2010.
refudiate -palin
About 785,000 results (0.18 seconds)
Any time–Jan 1, 2010
Tons of activity for “refudiate” having nothing to do with Palin. Interesting.
an orifice of Richard Gere?
yitbos
I think she merged two words, repudiate and refute. She probably meant refute. But then again my major was in Engineering and writing was a necessary evil course. Still I would have used spell check.
Of course, any English speaker with a brain would know what it means without needing a dictionary.
Now I’m thinking she meant repudiate. Either way it looks like it could be a new cool word to mean both disprove of and dissociate with.
Yes, they continue to fail to evict her from their heads, even though she resides there for negative rent (seven figures, as I recall).
I use opera browser which has auto spell checker. This story is really much about nothing. Media hold Palin to higher standard than Obama and themselves
Worrying about her use of language helps them avoid dealing with the point, which is that New York’s grandees have granted permission for a mosque to be built at Ground Zero.
And she has called them on it (as have millions of people) and all they can do is prattle. They are building a mosque at Ground Zero, and all they can do is prattle.
**Example: I refudiate Jimah Carter, Bill Clinton And BArry Half-White..
And no one seems to be thinking that maybe she mispelled a text message by accident?
How many people here have been called out by the spelling police, and it’s not really a spelling error at all, but just clumsy fingers hitting the wrong button at the wrong time. I personally always have to go through all my notes for “teh” which I put in place of “the”.
Maybe she simply put an f instead of a p while typing fast.
You know, like saying 57 states when you mean 50.
Hey! Did everyone hear the latest about Palin?
Free Republic has several words that were created by errant keystrokes or brain farts, gamers have quite a few, and then they just won’t go away.
I swear...
I have heard numerous people use the same word. and I have worked in radio for years..
Actually, it may have been Sarah who said that. Go backandcheck the article...”Sarah’s response:” immediately precedes the remark. Good for her..
So tell me...
Do you have a torch in your boot?
I also hear alot of people say ‘flustrated’...flustered and frustrated
LOL!
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