It’s sad when a nation loses its verbal heritage.
As the hardworking staff wrote in a radio commentary awhile back:
Amazing to tell, America may go down in history as the first civilization ever to forget its own clichés.
It’s amazing because clichés have always been a culture’s common linguistic currency. And right now America’s linguistic currency is being devalued faster than dollars in Zimbabwe.
[The 2008] presidential election has provided lots of examples of what we’ll call Mangled Phrase Syndrome. Back in April, MSNBC’s First Read online political digest reported that “the [Barack] Obama campaign has launched an intensive registration drive across North Carolina that has reached a pitch this week.”
It used to be things reached a fever pitch, but obviously politics is a lot cooler these days.
The following month, Obama told ABC’s Nightline that House of Clinton consigliere James Carville “is well-known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about.”
What is he, Moby Dick? I always thought “spouting off” included somebody’s mouth.
Then there was the New York Times piece headlined “Clinton may be hopeful, but Obama rolls on.” The story noted that delegate numbers overwhelmingly favored Obama, but the mainstream media continued to float Hillary Clinton’s presidential boat.
The Times piece asserted “None of this is to say that Clinton has run out of string.” Of course, “run out the string” is the traditional phrase, but maybe Clinton actually did run out of string. She was certainly fit to be tied often enough.
When the parties’ nominating conventions finally arrived, we were treated to a whole new round of fractured phrases. MSNBC video savant Chris Matthews said of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, “They do everything right. They have great kids, they work their hearts off . . .”
That’s gotta be painful, eh?
The New York Times asked DNC delegates who would draw more contempt if he showed up at the Democratic National Convention: Cheatin’ John Edwards or Vichy Joe Lieberman?
“Lieberman, definitely,” a Texas delegate said. “If he showed his face, he’d have to leave town in the back of a trunk.”
Back, front – I think he means the trunk of a car.
On the international front, a New Republic magazine piece quoted a Beltway lobbyist describing Swaziland’s King Mswati III as “a great guy one-on-one,” but “real green behind the ears.”
I guess that’s what comes from not drying behind your ears when they’re wet.
And finally, a GOP operative told the New York Times that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann “may be a bleeding liberal, and I don’t agree with his harshness toward Republicans, but I find his show entertaining and informative.”
Yes, well, not to be heartless, but bleeding liberals always did make good TV.
Cut to Monday’s Boston Herald, which added a new chapter to America’s Cliché Crackup in a piece about abandoned Boston homes.
Headline:
Mayor to owners of blighted Hub homes: Don’t lien on me
Lede:
Owners of boarded-up and blighted homes in the Hub are being warned by a fed-up Mayor Thomas M. Menino to come out of the shadows and settle with the city for more than $170,000 shelled out to secure the rotting properties.
Menino kicked off the festivities with this quote:
“You can’t run and hide”
Methinks the phrase is “You can run, but you can’t hide,” but me could be wrong.
After that, a Dorchester resident added this clichette:
“It’s down and out neglect”
That seems to be somewhere between “out and out” and “downright.”
Downright dizzying.
Campaign Outsider 