return to teabagging

Herb Stahlke hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM
Wed Nov 10 17:20:00 UTC 2010


Back in the early 90s I was attending an Educom conference in Atlanta.
 We met in a large auditorium to hear the keynote speaker, former
president Jimmy Carter.  He was at the front left of the stage, and
there was a large screen behind him that showed him with simultaneous
captioning.  As he was talking about how the Carter Center was
non-partisan, he noted that they worked "with Henry Kissinger, Gerald
Ford, and other prominent Republicans."  The unfortunate captioner
caught this as "prominent rubble cans."  The audience burst into
laughter, and Carter look puzzled and went on.

Herb

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: return to teabagging
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's also teapugs, which is similar to repugs (for Republicans). I
> also came across teapugnants in the Daily Kos.
>
> Paul
>
> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 10:46 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â return to teabagging
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> For portmanteau collectors:
>>
>> Aside from the debate on whether a "teabagger" is a derogatory term or
>> one of endearment, there is a lot of "tea" related name calling lately.
>> Some of these have been around for some time, others are fairly recent.
>> I simply started with comments at TalkingPointsMemo.com, followed by a
>> brief Google search on several terms that sounded promising.
>>
>> Teabagger is still, by far, the favorite. It's never going to be
>> possible to separate the Tea Party from "teabagging".
>> Teahadist is popular (5000 raw ghits, compared to mostly double digits
>> for the rest). One of the first to make it into the Urban Dictionary.
>> Teaocrat/teaocracy--this one has the benefit of being both a portmanteau
>> of tea[anything] and bureaucrat, as well as sounding like
>> "theocrat"--which, of course, many of the teaocrats are.
>> Tealusional--hard to make a noun out of this one.
>> Teaocon or Tea-con--also in UD.
>> Teanut--a blend of "teabagger" and "wingnut". Or just a meld of "tea"
>> and "nut". Also applies to some perfectly legitimate plants that have
>> had this name for decades, if not longer.
>> Tearannical--this one is actually odd. I did not find one instance of
>> this applying to Tea Party members. But I did find a couple of posts
>> where this is how someone /misspells/ "tyrannical" (both with one or two
>> "n") while coming from a Tea Party perspective.
>>
>> Also present are a bunch of jokes on "tea party"/"teapot". One comment
>> starts talking about "a tempest in a teabagger... er... teapot". There
>> are several "tea potty" jokes, including "tempest in a tea potty" (note
>> the theme?). Even UD has an entry under "Tea Potty Ideology".
>>
>> I'm just listing the things I found initially or thought of first and
>> then found instances of. I'm sure there is more.
>>
>> Â  Â  VS-)
>
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