USA: Beacon of Stupid - Just Make it Up!

By now, you've probably heard of Sarah Palin's latest gaffe, which involved her creating the new English word, "refudiate." Not only did she say the word on a Hannity broadcast, but she decided to double down on her new special word by re-using it in a tweet.

As BlueGal points out, Palin responds defiantly by equating herself with Shakespeare:

"Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!

One thing that Sarah doesn't understand (NO WAY! THERE'S SOMETHING THAT SARAH PALIN DOESN'T UNDERSTAND?!?!?) is that there is quite a difference between a sniglet, something for creative and comedic value, and defending your getting a word wrong by claiming you just made a new one up for the betterment of the English language.

Liss said by email when we were talking about this:

Accidentally combining "refute" and "repudiate" is an easy mistake to make. But refusing to acknowledge that easy mistake and reframing it as evidence of her support for Shakespearean innovation is crass, coming from someone who actively plays to and exploits willful ignorance.

On the one hand, she panders to the idea of a "Real America" populated with small-town folks who don't take to those elitists intellectual types, where science classes ought to teach Bible lessons and sex ed should primary focus on not having sex, but on the other hand, she cloaks herself in a progressive literary tradition in order to avoid admitting a mistake.

What's consistently annoying about Sarah Palin is that she wants to appropriate the pieces of progressive concepts, whether it be feminism or living language, that suit her and reject everything else. No, not just reject it: Actively campaign against it.

See, school doesn't really matter because you could always fight back against those smarty-pants city folk by claiming you just coined a new word for the language! Whee!!

Had she not quit her Governor job to make shitloads of cash on the lecture circuit, maybe she could have introduced changes to the vocabulary section of the SAT's so that her constituents would have been allowed to just make up new words instead of do something silly like define what the words that are already in the language mean.

Wev - I'll just chalk it up as some more shit that Sarah Palin makes up. After all, it's nothing new for her.

Oh, and Sarah - "misunderestimate" is a truly shitty example.