Moonbat vs. Wingnut

Okay, Grant, how about you hit me again with another great slang term?

Well, if you remember, I talked earlier this year to William Sapphire.

He put out a new edition of his Political Slang Dictionary, right?

Right.

Which is a great book.

I think you’ve seen that.

He’s included for the first time terms that have sprung up, say, in the last four to ten years.

And the reason I mention this is because the difference between 2004, when I did my book, and 2008, when he’s published his, a couple of these terms weren’t yet fixed in the language.

So it’s interesting to note what terms now we can consider four years later to be well-established.

And two of these worth mentioning are moonbat and wingnut.

Do you know these?

Moonbat.

Is it like a fruit bat?

Well, only if you’re talking about a liberal in derogatory terms.

Oh, really?

That’s what a moonbat is?

Yes, and a wingnut is a derogatory name for a conservative.

I’ve certainly heard wingnut, but moonbat hasn’t quite invaded my consciousness yet.

Well, hey, I have an oldie but goodie for you in terms of…

And I guess it isn’t necessarily political slang,

But it was just a word I stumbled across in the Oxford English Dictionary the other day,

And it’s empleomania, E-M-P-L-E-O-M-A-N-I-N-A.

This is when you’re crazy to be employee of the month?

Pretty close.

It’s defined in the OED as a mania for holding public office.

Emphiomania.

I think there’s a lot of that going around these days.

Yeah, there’s something they call Washington disease or Potomac fever.

This is when somebody just seems to be insane to run for the presidency.

They can’t think of anything else that all they want to do is become president of the United States.

Sounds like it’s related to that.

Yeah, sounds like some people need to be cured.

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