Geoffrey Nunberg, professor at UC Berkeley's School of Information, language commentator for NPR's Fresh Air and author of Ascent of the A-Word, looks back on what terms, phrases or sayings from the 2012 election season will live on in the popular lexicon.
Comments [12]
Martin, only your fellow ideologues find common indignation in your collective misrepresentation of this phrase. LOL
The phrase "99 percent" was used in the 2010 documentary "Inside Job" by Charles Ferguson about the 2008 financial collapse. I believe his film set the stage for the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and gave birth to their mantra "We Are the 99%".
"You didn't build that" will remain for awhile ... because Obama will remind people of his antipathy toward personal achievement in the next 4 years.
Probably way too obscene for a classy show like this, but: Santorum.
from where the phrase "what not" came from?
Suddenly prebuttal has become a word... or not?
Great New Yorker cartoon this week of GOP saying it needs "binders full of Latinos" ...
http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Ms-Davis-get-us-some-binders-full-of-Latinos-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i9300122_.htm
"It's arithmetic!" -- to criticize fantasy-based economics.
I am 63, and my Irish-American grandparents used "marlarkey" all the time - especially to the 10 grandchildren!
"Legitimate rape" will be a phrase used to condemn and dismiss anti-choice fanatics.
How about "legitimate rape"? or "the woman's body has a way to shut THAT WHOLE THING down"?
NIINE NIINE NIINE!
Let's hope none of the words from the 2012 election live on in the English Language. I am sorry most of the words/phrases/idioms introduced into the language over the past two decades have survived; guessestimation? locavore? foodie? oh my!
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