The Word Guy - Column by Rob Kyff

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Following the Party Lines

Rob Kyff

Mr. Chairman . . . The great State of English, land of strong verbs, superlative adjectives and perfect tenses, proudly casts its 26 letters . . . er, votes for the next president of the United States -- Rob Kyff.

Sorry, folks. Ain't gonna happen. Let's console ourselves by exploring some lingo associated with this summer's political conventions.

Alas, this year's confabs will produce no "smoke-filled room" (first used to describe the process by which Republican Warren Harding was nominated in 1920) and no "dark horse" (borrowed from horse racing during the 1850s to describe a long-shot candidate plucked from obscurity).

But we will surely have two "running mates," a term also derived from the sport of kings. Originally denoting a second-rate horse used as a pacesetter, "running mate" acquired its political sense in 1900.

The term "ticket" for candidates who are running as a team emerged during the early 1700s. Back then, before the secret ballot, the candidates of each party or faction were listed on a separate ballot or "ticket." Citizens, who voted by requesting the ticket of one party, soon began referring to the party's candidates as a "ticket."

We have "balanced tickets," "dream tickets" and, most intriguingly, "kangaroo tickets," those in which the hind legs (vice presidential candidate) are stronger than the front legs (presidential candidate); think Dukakis-Bentsen in 1988. (Come to think of it, Dukakis poking his head out of that tank did lo ok like a joey in a pouch.)

The term "slate" for several candidates of the same party running as a package emerged during the 1840s when candidates' names were sometimes written on a slate board.

"Slate" took on a new meaning during the 1950s when left-leaning students ran as what they called a "Slate of Candidates" for student government offices at the University of California at Berkeley." When these same students later took up wider liberal causes, they were simply called "slate," a moniker adopted by the liberal online magazine "Slate."

Presidential tickets often produce "strange bedfellows," a term first floated in William Shakespeare's The Tempest when Trinculo, taking shelter under a sheet with the scary Caliban, observes, "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." In 1850, Charles Dudley Warner, editor of the Hartford Courant, remade the bed with political sheets when he wrote, "Politics makes strange bedfellows."

Trinculo and Warner -- strange bedfellows, indeed!

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Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.

This news arrived on: 08/27/2008

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