to "swift-boat" update

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jul 18 13:24:39 UTC 2012


Russ McClay posted this word without defining it in 2005, noting 22,000+
Google hits.

Still not in OED, it's being used daily in this year's campaign coverage.
It is used to mean, approximately, to "subject to well-funded,
well-organized, sensationalized, and misleading political attacks."

There's even a Wacki article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboating

That article cites "conservatives" who believe that "McCarthyism" is a
"hate term," and that "swift-boating" means "exposing the lies, deceit and
fraud of self-glorifying public officials or candidates for office who
exaggerate their military service by lying about their feats of heroism and
combat wounds."

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list