Here’s a bit of political slang now making the rounds: sleepover. No, we’re not talking about another pol caught with his pants down. We’re talking about spending the night with, well, a voting machine. In this week’s episode, we examine this and other examples of political language. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Voting Machine Sleepover”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
You know, these days it’s impossible to turn on the radio without hearing people talk about politics.
So does this mean you’re about to talk about politics?
As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, it does.
But of course, what I want to talk about, Grant, is political language.
And I know you’re a lexicographer. You follow this stuff.
What are you seeing? What are you hearing?
Once you start tracking this stuff, Martha, you can’t shake it.
You know, the guys who turn to the sports pages because they have to see what last night’s scores were.
Yeah.
They skip the whole rest of the paper.
The world could be on fire and they want to see it out of the next did.
Right.
I’m kind of that way with political language.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, it’s addictive.
One of the terms they came across, which I really like because I like the fact that it’s catching on, is sleepover.
Sleepover?
Wait a minute.
Is this another political scandal?
Has nothing to do with Edwards.
Oh, good.
This is when a poll worker takes an electronic voting machine home.
Boy, they’re desperate.
The machine sleeps over at their house.
The machines get prettier at closing time?
What?
Some strange beer goggles.
No, no.
They bring it home because they want to protect it,
Prevent people from possibly tampering with it,
Or even more practically,
The next day they’re just going to take it to a new polling station.
Really?
So they take it home with them.
Yeah, it’s kind of a measure of security.
Now, the problem with this is, of course,
Is various political parties might question the allegiance of the poll worker
And think that maybe they’re taking it home so that they can tamper with it.
And so it’s one of those things that continues to be used
Because various legislation in California and Ohio has come up over this practice.
So sleepover, interesting, yeah.
Well, that’s great. I love it.
And as far as the election goes, there’s not a lot else new that’s happening.
The old terms are coming back.
Every four years, there’s a revival of political language.
This is if you discount, of course, the plays on words for the name Barack Obama.
Sure.
Okay, great.
Well, if you’d like to talk about political slang or any other kind of slang or any other aspect of language, give us a yell.
The number is 1-877-929-9673.
That’s 1-877-Wayword, or email us.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
