Monday, February 25, 2013

Politenglish


Not since the Oakland Board Of Education recognized Ebonics as an official language has a new language designation been bestowed on such a pervasive and worthy language as is the case today. Due to the snowstorm this weekend I had an opportunity to watch news to my heart's content this Sunday and I had an earth-shattering realization. It is not that the talking heads were lying, they were simply not speaking English as we, the non-political mouthpieces, do.


It occurred to me this strange and evolving language may confuse people who are not familiar with some of its peculiar turns of phrase so, as a public service, I decided to present a basic primer today of some of the phrases that you may hear a Politenglish speaker use.

Bipartisan
adjective
equally loathed by all parties

Fascism
Noun
Democracy

Fascist
noun
any democratically elected executive of a political leaning other than that of the speaker
synonym: Socialist

First Amendment
huh?
Shut up while I tell you what to think. I'm talking now!

Leadership
noun
the act of agreeing entirely with the speaker and espousing all of their views

Power-Grab
noun
any decision of a democratically elected official with which the speaker personally disagrees

Second Amendment
noun
"It shall be required by law that all persons regardless of mental capacity shall have right to buy any weapon they would care to, for any reason, at any time, in any place. Furthermore, any motion toward taking any reasonable action for the protection of public safety shall be considered anathema. This right trumps all other rights and responsibilities defined herein."
See: Howitzer Happy Meal

Socialism
Noun
democracy

Socialist
noun
any democratically elected executive of a political leaning other than that of the speaker
synonym: Fascist

Unconstitutional
adverb
any action of a democratically elected official with which the speaker personally disagrees

 This is only a brief primer. I invite my readers to submit other entries to the official Politenglish dictionary.

Wherever you are today I hope you understand what you mean.

Don Bergquist – February 25, 2013 – Lakewood, Colorado, USA

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