Bush has not stiffed the English language, but he may have crawfished around it

The Times ^ | September 6, 2002 | Philip Howard

[MadIvan]

President Bush wears many hats besides his Texan stetson. His fans think of George Dubya as a good old boy who waves the lasso for Middle America. Neutrals see him as the most popular President in history, who has carried most of the United States and the sane world with him in his stand against mad Islamist murderers. Enemies consider him a Millionocchio twitching on the strings of oil tycoons and fundamentalist Christian bigots. Most of them see him as a man whose words get scrambled between head and voice into the wit and wisdom of Bushisms. Intellectual snobs sneer that he would have difficulty in talking and riding a bicycle (or in his case a cow pony) simultaneously. Nobody has yet described the President as a poet.

But he emerged as one at his meeting in Washington on Wednesday. He is going to tell the UN General Assembly that President Saddam Hussein is “stiffing the world”. And he says: “For long years he has sidestepped, crawfished, wheedled out of any agreement he made not to develop weapons of mass destruction.”

Neither “to stiff” nor “to crawfish” is a familiar metaphor in Britain. Both are vivid, as any boy who has fished for crawfish (or crayfish) in the chalk streams of England knows. The little critturs are brilliant at backing out of the kettle-on-a-string baited with rotting meat saved from school lunch. “To stiff” has several meanings in British English, either murderous or sexual. George’s application of it, meaning to cheat, will exercise the translators at the General Assembly. It should produce some hilarious malapropisms, with delegates shaking their écouteurs in disbelief.

Pedants will sneer at George’s neologisms. They always have. Other times of unprecedentedly rapid lexical innovation provoked outrage from the Mr Grumpies. They called them “inkhorn” terms. If the word had existed, they would have called them “cowboy” English. Dryden complained about “those who corrupt our English Idiom by mixing it with too much French”. Defoe called the inundation of slang “a Frenzy of the Tongue, a Vomit of the Brain”. By far the greatest sinner against the purity of English in their time was Shakespeare. Many of that great neologist’s creations have stuck: accommodation, assassination, barefaced, countless ... Others have fallen off the language tree: abruption, cadent, vastidity...

OK, say the pedants — or, in their case, “with the greatest respect”. It is one thing to accept neologisms from poets and other “creative” writers. C’est leur métier. But do we have to take vulgar new words from politicians? Especially from those whose command of English is as Brahma-bullish as Bush’s? Of course we must and do. Politicians and others in the public domain are prolific creators of new words and phrases. The Prime Minister has taught us the “Third Way”. Margaret Thatcher (through the impish medium of Julian Critchley) has given us “to handbag” as a verb. Chris Patten, a politician with a creative gift for language, popularised “porkies” and also the “double whammy”. The Chingford Skinhead will be recorded for having instructed us to “get on our bikes”. Politicians too neologise. C’est leur métier, aussi.

Neologisms come in many categories. Some are loanwords from other languages: glasnost, nouvelle cuisine. Some are compounded: couch potato. Others extend grammatical function: to handbag, to quest. Others shift a meaning: to spin, to necklace (to put a tyre soaked in petrol around somebody’s neck, and set it alight), and, in George’s neologism, to stiff.

But the most poetic neologisms introduce a new metaphor: “Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house”: Dylan Thomas. And, of course, George’s “to crawfish”.

And a neologism is seldom credited to its coiner. Language bubbles up all the time, wherever men talk to each other. It is only when their bright new coinage is picked up by some media magpie of language, or some celebrity whose words are shouted around the world, that it comes to public attention.

So let it be with the President. “To stiff” (to cheat, or refuse to pay or tip) has been floating around in the US since 1950. The Washington Post, 1982 declared: “Instead of stiffing his servers, McCarthy should be stiffing their employers.” “To crawfish”, meaning to withdraw unreservedly from an untenable position, has been swimming backwards in US bayous for even longer. The Congressional Globe, 1848 observed that: “No sooner did they see the old British Lion rising up than they crawfished back to the 49th parallel.”

The President may not know it, or show it. But he is a linguistic archaeologist as well as a poet. His vivid metaphors are just the kind of colloquialisms that we Limeys expect to hear around the Texan barbecue or bar of our imaginations. They are lovely.

[js1138]

The Double Whammy was the invention of Evil Eye Fleegle in The Lil' Abner comic strip.

[Brookhaven]

For someone born in Conneticut and raised in elite private schools, Dubya sure does talk...ethnic? I was born and raised in the South. Where did he learn his accent?

It's obviously genuine. IMHO, most peoples accents are formed in their early years. By the time they start kindergarten it is pretty much set.

I guess he gets his Texas accent from having spent most of his early years in Texas. He doesn't have a "hard" Texas accent. Probably the influence of his non-Texas raised parents.

I've always thought his accent was one aspect of the press' critisim of his speech. There seems to be a bias against southern accents of any type amoung the mainstream press. Other regional speech patterns (Baltimore, New York, New Jersey, Boston, Maine, Minnesota, etc...) are no more proper or improper than the typical southern or Texas one. Yet, somehow they get a pass by the press while someone speaking with a southern accent is tagged as not speaking proper English.

[Romulus]

With beignets at the Cafe du Monde, yes.

A fitting end to a dinner of crawfish, of course.

Didn't get a waitress saying "swaaaytie" though, and that sort of diminished the experience. ;)

Maybe an understudy could be found. ;-)

[MadIvan]

A fitting end to a dinner of crawfish, of course.

Sadly I'm allergic to crawfish. But I like how you have Tabasco with the salt and pepper in Louisiana. ;)

Maybe an understudy could be found. ;-)

No doubt.

Regards, Ivan

[Grammy]

"I've always thought his accent was one aspect of the press' critisim of his speech. There seems to be a bias against southern accents of any type amoung the mainstream press. "

Don't you know that people automatically deduct 60 points from an IQ if they hear a southern accent? That is why so many people underestimate a southerner. (and the southerners know it, and use that to their advantage.)

[Mr. Mulliner]

You've got the right perspective on this one, Kay (as always). I can hardly believe that this is making such a big splash overseas, let alone in our own country. And I'm not even suthern.

[Billthedrill]

I've been careful in this regard ever since "I look like a bum" slipped out whilst in the company of some British friends...

[MadIvan]

I've been careful in this regard ever since "I look like a bum" slipped out whilst in the company of some British friends...

I will be very polite and not burst out laughing at your predicament. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[SGCOS]

Bush is a poet,
and he don't even know it,
but his feet show it,
they're Longfellows.

(sorry, somebody had to)

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Thank you so much for the post and the ping. That was lovely.(^:

Surprise, the Europeans don't hate us. A majority support our war on terror and sympathize w/ our stance on Iraq. Who knew? The 6000 person poll contradicts the Euro-US press anti-American campaign:
Consulting the 'allies'.

[tillacum]

Wall, Ahl be hornswaggled, that was a naace piece to read.
Thanx.

[tillacum]

Or, "we're in full swaang roundin' up caves"