The Word Guy - Column by Rob Kyff

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Red, Write and Blue

Rob Kyff

Why are Democratic states called "blue states" and Republican states "red states"?

This mystery is worthy of another "National Treasure" movie. In fact, if you look closely at the face side of a $20 bill, the eagle on the left is blue and the number "20" in the lower right corner is red. A-ha!

OK, enough "hue"y. In fact, all language sleuths agree on one thing: The current color scheme grew out of election maps used by TV networks during the 2000 election.

Washington Post staff writer Paul Farhi claims the first use of the terms "red states" and "blue states" emerged just before the 2000 election on NBC's "Today Show" when the late Tim Russert pointed to a map provided by MSNBC and asked, "So how does [Bush] get those remaining 61 electoral red states?"

But Grant Barrett, editor of "Hatchet Jobs & Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang," says the terms "red states" and "blue states" were used well before Bush v. Gore. "If you go back to pre-2000," Barrett told a radio interviewer in 2004, "you'll actually see people talk about red states and blue states, but they're switched the other way around."

Evan Morris, who writes about word origins at www.worddetective.com, agrees. The use of blue and red on electoral maps dates back to at least 1908, Morris notes, and this color scheme has flipped back and forth several times.

But as the 20th century progressed, "red" acquired negative connotations of radicalism and communism while blue retained its association with truth and quality -- "true blue," "blue chip." So each party was increasingly reluctant to be colored red.

Finally, in 1976, trying to avoid charges of favoritism, the TV networks agreed to set blue for the incumbent party and red for the challenging party, with the colors switching every four years.

From 1976 through 1996, this scheme led to the Republicans' being blue and the Democrats' being red in every election save 1988. This reversed in 2000 and 2004 when the Republicans were red and the Democrats blue, and it's this configuration that gave us the "red state-blue state" terminology of the 2000s.

According to the 1976 agreement, the incumbent Republicans should be blue this year and the challenging Democrats red. But will the networks, in choosing this year's color scheme, abandon this dictate and yield to the powerful nomenclature of the watershed 2000 election?

Stay tuned.

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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: 06/26/2008

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