de-infest and other goodies

[Victor Steinbok]

Some minor observations from recent--and not so recent--blog posts. I
meant to do this a couple of weeks ago, when Sasha Volokh (a legal
blogger) triumphantly declared that OED has incorporated his corrections
and additions. Since that particular bit had been posted before I
finished my collection, I kicked the bucket down the street a bit. Since
then, I've added a few more.

1. Ignoring for the moment all the brilliant email writing by County
Supervisor Bill James (Meklenburg, NC) for its content, I just wanted to
mention one of his creative word choices:

http://goo.gl/GRIW1
> "... Unlike prostitution (exchanging money), even suggesting
> homosexual sex is a criminal offense in NC. If we were all that
> ‘progressive’ would we be arresting 250 homosexuals a year? Setting up
> sting operations to /de-infest/ areas where they congregate? Point is,
> if you want to delude yourself that homosexual conduct is ‘ok’ go
> ahead. The law, the police and the DA however have a different view."

2. On a completely different note, there is this verbing of "haircut":

http://goo.gl/9S7ui
> Last week Chris Whalen, the high-profile analyst at Institutional Risk
> Analytics, caused a stir by arguing California was going to default on
> its debts.
> "I think they're going to default… I think eventually /the debt will
> have to be haircut/," he told Henry Blodget, the former dot-com
> analyst and now editor of Business Insider.

3. "Ju-jitsu"--and it's spelling cousin "jiujitsu"--has now completely
devolved from a fighting technique to one of manipulation and contortionism:

http://goo.gl/YAVLR
> As numerous commentators have said, Obama needs to show he “gets it”
> and acknowledge the conservative surge. But he needn’t acquiesce to
> conservatives, nor make theatrical shows of “fighting” them. Instead,
> he needs to move from a strategy of overwhelming force (marshaling his
> congressional Democratic majority to pass health care legislation
> against a united GOP opposition) to one of /subtle jiujitsu/
> (negotiating a tax deal with Republicans that manages to deliver a
> rabbit-out-of-his-hat stimulus package). Presidents Eisenhower,
> Reagan, and Clinton spent most of their presidencies contending with
> divided government, yet still cleverly managed to move their agendas
> forward. So can Obama, if he can find the right words and ideas.

In fact, I can't recall the last time I heard a reference to "ju-jitsu"
as a fighting technique other than some passing references in recent
films with 19th century plots (Sherlock Holmes?) and subtitles to
Japanese films circa 1950 (where ju-jitsu /was/ the plot!).

5. The OED has a draft addition (March 2004) for "triangulation":

> Polit. (orig. U.S.). The action or process of positioning oneself
> politically between traditional left-wing and right-wing standpoints;
> cf. third way n. 2.

This is not in comporting with some of the more recent instances:

http://politi.co/goDcsv
> Obama, the official noted, was "responding to several very loud voices
> from the left." Triangulation, by contrast, "is an intentional
> political strategy to win favor with swing voters by pushing off the
> left. That's not what the President is doing, and that's not our
> strategy."

Ben Smith's definition in the Politico got many responses. Among them

http://goo.gl/aX8Dt
> Part of the problem is that there is no agreed-upon definition of what
> constitutes a triangulation strategy. Jonathan Bernstein offered a
> reasonable argument that the word itself is just a consultant-driven
> "advertising slogan." Bernstein added, "That's what those sort of
> people -- Dick Morris, Karl Rove, James Carville -- do; they make up
> fancy slogans or theories or whatever as a way of claiming that their
> mysterious voodoo is irreplaceable."
> Perhaps, but I tend to think there's an actual political strategy
> lurking just below the hype on the surface. Triangulation is, to my
> mind, an above-the-fray, third-way tack on steroids -- present the
> public with disdain for two unpopular teams (congressional Democrats
> and congressional Republicans), and position yourself as being
> superior to both, by criticizing both.
> The Clinton/Morris approach wasn't just consultant smoke and mirrors
> -- the then-president really did put distance between his White House
> and the left as part of a deliberate strategy. When liberals
> criticized him, Clinton and his team found this /valuable/, because it
> allowed them to exploit liberal rebukes to help Clinton appeal to
> moderates and "independents."
> Not surprisingly, opinions vary widely on the point, but this appears
> to have no resemblance to what Obama is doing now, even with his angry
> remarks on Tuesday. In fact, I think it's largely /the opposite/ on
> triangulation.

Perhaps it's a bit early to pull the trigger on a definitive definition
of "triangulation". Perhaps that "positioning between" should be
"positioning outside"?

6. Multiple blogs remind us today that conservatives critics had
referred to using a legislative technique of "deem and pass" as "demon
pass" (e.g., http://bit.ly/eJR4qh)

VS-)

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