Political Slang

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Well, unless you’ve spent the last few months in a galaxy far, far away, you know that this is an election year. And that means we’re being barraged by even more political talk and punditry than ever.

Tons of it. And I love collecting it, Martha. Even the stuff that’s not related to the election year. For example, do you know what hog housing is in South Dakota?

I can’t say that I do.

Hog housing in South Dakota?

Hog housing.

It’s their slang term for when they’ve got a bill that’s all approved, and then they gut it. They rip out all the things that have been approved, and they rewrite it to do something completely different. It’s also known as a gut end stuff in Oregon.

But.

Wow.

Well, is there any other political slang that’s catching your ear these days besides fire it up?

Well, you mean besides all the wordplay about the name Huckabee?

Oh, yeah.

Tons of that. I mean, you could write a book just on play.

Or a limerick.

Yeah, yeah. Hockenfroider was one that I heard.

There’s one that I like that they’re using on the right to talk about, you know, the very conservative people are talking about John McCain. They’re saying that he is hispandering. That is, he’s pandering to Hispanics.

Whoa.

Yeah, not a very nice one.

We’ve also got horse racism. Do you know what that is?

No.

It’s not biased against Duns and Palominos. It’s just a term for the way the media covers politics. It’s about the horse race, right? They treat it like we’re watching the ponies at Belmont or Bay Meadows.

Oh, really? Or Louisville. Wow. Yeah, I like that. Horse racism.

Horse racism. Yeah, and you’ve got the little pun in there about racism, right?

Absolutely. That’s great.

Well, if you want to talk about political slang or grammar or slogans or language, give us a call. The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.