verbage

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 1:50 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Barely in OED (as a "rare" syn. for "verbiage"), this now means "words." Gov.
> Palin (on FNC) has dismissed criticism of Sen. McCain's statement that "the
> fundamentals of the economy are strong" by saying that it is "an unfair
> attack on the verbage that John McCain chose to use....an attack based on
> verbage."
>
> Definitely not "verbiage."

This transcript gives her the benefit of the doubt:

---
http://thepage.time.com/excerpts-from-palins-hannity-interview-part-i/
On reaction to Obama's attack on McCain for saying that the
"fundamentals" of the economy are strong:
"Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbiage that Senator McCain
chose to use because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain
afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the
American people.  And of course, that is strong and that is the
foundation of our economy."
---


--Ben Zimmer

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