Plumbing the depths of Joe the Plumber's "dictionary

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Mar 9 13:16:13 UTC 2012


I can't judge Joe's response fully without seeing his original statement
about "queer."  If it was entirely innocuous, he could have said "Yeah, I
stand by my statement because all I meant was...."

If the original had included Ron's explanation, I'd agree that Sambolin was
"playing word games." Otherwise no.

What I heard Joe say on CNN yesterday boiled down to:

 "Homosexuals are Americans and should be allowed to work too. Just keep
'em away from my kids because...you know.  And it's fine to call 'em
'queers,' because that only means 'unusual.' It isn't a slur. Also, just
because I'm running for public office and consented to appear on your show
to boost my own candidacy doesn't mean you can ask anything you
damn-well please about public statements of mine.  What is this, another
left-wing-liberal media lynching?  You know, I think it is!"

In a different interview, the new editor of the late Andrew Breitbart's
blog suggested strongly that Soledad O'Brien is a black racist.

JL

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 5:36 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Plumbing the depths of Joe the Plumber's "dictionary
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73772.html
> >
> > Things only got worse when Sambolin cited some of Wurzelbacher's
> > previous statements about homosexuality, including his claim that the
> > word "queer" is not a slur, as well as his declaration that he would
> > not allow homosexuals "anywhere near my children."
> >
> > "Have you changed your positions on this at all?" Sambolin asked.
> >
> > "So this is TMZ, this isn't CNN, is what you're saying," Wurzelbacher
> > shot back.
> >
> > "Of course it's CNN. These are things that you said, that I would like
> > to know if you still stand by them or if you have changed your
> > positions on them."
> >
> > "Listen, in my dictionary, and everyone's dictionary in the 1970s, the
> > word queer did mean strange and unusual. There was no slur to it. Do
> > you challenge that?" the congressional candidate said, before adding,
> > "Come on, you're trying to do a 'gotcha' moment, it's quite obvious."
> >
>
>     VS-)
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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