Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Words   [Jay Nordlinger]

Readers have been writing me today about words: two in particular. One is “teabaggers.” This is a derogatory reference to protesters at “tea parties”: protesters against massive government spending, increasing government encroachment on the private sector, and so on. I discuss this word and its users in Impromptus today.

 

It began with Anderson Cooper, the much-admired CNN anchorman. He is not a left-wing pundit — or a pundit of any kind — as far as I know. He’s supposed to be a “mainstreamer,” like his network, I understand. He smirked or sneered that the protesters were “tea-bagging.” That is an allusion to an exotic sexual practice. David Gergen, conversing with him, smilingly went along with him. (Maybe he didn’t know what the word meant.)

 

Soon, almost immediately, the word caught on — entering the lexicon of the Left. On Keith Olbermann’s show, Janeane Garofalo said the following about tea-party protests: “This is racism straight up, nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks.” The other day, a Democratic congresswoman, Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire, mocked anti-ObamaCare protesters as “teabaggers.”

 

The word has gone mainstream, really. I have seen it in conservative columns — columns critical of the protesters — which is really deflating. How is it that an obscene putdown is instantly and everywhere acceptable? Not very long ago, Al D’Amato was practically run out of politics for saying “putzhead.”

 

It could be that conservatives will “own the insult” and use “teabagger” as a badge of honor. It could become some proud conservative N-word. President Reagan said, “I’m a contra, too.” Well, I’m a teabagger too — and the Anderson Cooper types can [go jump in a lake]. Still, I find the word kind of sickening, and its rapid spread and acceptance even more sickening.

 

Okay, let me get a little lighter. That second word I was talking about? It is “yorked.” I used “yorked” on the Corner this morning, meaning “ralphed” — I used “ralphed” in a column a few days ago (I think). A reader named Ralph wrote me and said, “Couldn’t you come up with another word?” This morning, several people wrote me and said, “What would Byron say?”

 

A number of readers suggested I say “baracked.” But wouldn’t that be hate speech? Racist? Prosecutable?

 

Come and get me, copper.

09/08 01:49 PMShare