"an emoticon of privacy"

[Garson O'Toole]

Thanks Ben. This story is rippling across the memesphere. Huffington
Post has a story; and so do New York Mag, Breitbart.tv, BuzzFeed,
Daily Caller, and other organizations.

The quick acting Daily Caller has actually created an "emoticon" for
the occasion. I cannot post it here because attachments are not
allowed on this mailing list. If you wish to see the graphic the link
to the page with the story and image is below.

[Begin excerpt]
Whether she meant to or not, McCain inspired us at The Daily Caller to
envision what an “emoticon of privacy” would look like:
[End excerpt]

Short link: http://goo.gl/ECXWq

Long link: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/09/meghan-mccain-obama-deserves-a-small-emoticon-of-privacy/


On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      "an emoticon of privacy"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On MSNBC, Megan McCain said the Obamas deserve "an emoticon of privacy":
>
> http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/meghan-mccain-give-obamas-emoticon-of-privacy.html
>
> A simple malaprop for "modicum," or more of an eggcorn? (She said it
> twice, so it wasn't just a slip of the tongue.) An emoticon is a small
> squiggly thing, so I can vaguely see a semantic basis for it.
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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