different planet

[Dan Goncharoff]

This Brooklyn boy found it all making sense until the very end -- could
someone enlighten me about the reference to "wicked Ron's gazebo"?

DanG

On 4/21/2010 4:51 AM, Michael Quinion wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Michael Quinion<wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG>
> Organization: World Wide Words
> Subject:      Re: different planet
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>> It's not just British politics that's hard to follow sometimes--it's
>> also the writing about British politics
>>
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/21/rat-on-a-sinking-ship
>>
>>> Nestyn, Tuesday. Little Nathaniel Clore? As in, "Hi guys, I'm Nat from
>>> the Lib Dems, great yeah - is it just me or are the the other two just so
>>> over?" As in, the little geek who used to deliver our papers - when he
>>> wasn't away at St Posh's academy, ordering fag major to roast fag minor
>>> over matron's log fire? The only consolation, when I see streets suddenly
>>> lined with posters of little Lord Fauntleroy in his smug off-duty
>>> barrister's yellow polo shirt, is that I'm not the only one who never
>>> spotted Nestyn's boy wonder smarming up out of nowhere. Even Rowe-Dent's
>>> suddenly feeling her age, dehyphenating her operation - "Hey there, Pippa
>>> Dent is on Twitter!" - and trying to explain the big society (all yours,
>>> darling), instead of relying on Ashcroft-funded botox and wicked Ron's
>>> gazebo to sweep her into power.
>>>
> I suspect most British people would have trouble with bits of that. It's a
> satirical column about a fictional Labour candidate in the current general
> election (Nestyn is not a real place). But dehyphenation, to pull one term
> at random, is a minor but real trend, as one Conservative candidate at
> least with a double-barrelled name (the Pippa Rowe-Dent of the piece) has
> shortened it so as not to appear so upper class. "Big Society" is a
> campaign slogan of the Conservatives. The diatribe on Nathaniel Clore is a
> response to the big surge in Liberal Democrat support following the first
> leaders' debate last week.
>
> --
> Michael Quinion
> Editor, World Wide Words
> Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org
>
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