Nattering nabobs redux

[Garson O'Toole]

Nancy Friedman wrote:
> On Sunday, Newark (NJ) mayor Cory Booker delivered the commencement speech
> at Stanford University, his alma mater. My local public-radio station, KQED,
> played a clip from the end of the speech that included the unattributed
> phrase "nattering nabobs of negativity."  ...

LIFE magazine mentioned some other colorful phrases employed by Agnew.
The original phrase apparently used the word "negativism" instead of
"negativity".

Cite: 1970 October 16, LIFE, Notes on a new style for Agnew by William
K. Zinsser, Page 29, Time, Inc. (Google Books full view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Y1MEAAAAMBAJ&q=nabobs#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
How much more alliteration, for instance, can the republic stand? Mr.
Agnew has already given us "pusillanimous pussyfooting," "vicars of
vacillation," "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "hopeless,
hysterial hypochondriacs of history."
[End excerpt]


Below is a response to Agnew/Safire's alliterative insult that
appeared in the Saturday Review. The excerpt below is long, but the
entire article is freely available online at the Unz database so
copyright concerns are minimized. (Typos possible.)

Cite: 1970 October 24, The Saturday Review, Trade Winds by Cleveland
Amory, Page 8, Saturday Review, Inc., New York. (Unz)

[Begin excerpt]
"Take Heart, Nattering Nabobs of Negativism," the letter began." Here
is, for your benefit, the Liberal's Alphabet of Alliterative
Invective. Beat Spiro at his own game. Don't palpitate; alliterate!"
Anyway, here are some of our favorites from the "Agnewbet":

A arrogant artisans of aristocracy
B bigoted barons of big business
C caterwauling caterers of corrupt capitalism
E embittered enemies of empathy
H hateful harbingers of hogwash
I ignorant iguanodonts of idiocy
J jaded jackanapes of jactation
M moronic missionaries of mammon
N nauseating nestors of national narcolepsy
O obsolete operators of oligopolistic oligarchy
P priggish purveyors of pallid pap
Q quacks of querulous quibbling
T tenacious termagants of tense tenets
U unguiculate underminers of the ulotrichous unkempt
V vendors of vacuous verbiage
W wily wearers of weird wristwatches
X xiphioid xenophobes of the xanthous
Y yawping yahoos of yesterday
Z zany zealots of zoom
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Nancy Friedman <nancyf at wordworking.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Nancy Friedman <nancyf at WORDWORKING.COM>
> Organization: Wordworking
> Subject:      Nattering nabobs redux
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sunday, Newark (NJ) mayor Cory Booker delivered the commencement speech
> at Stanford University, his alma mater. My local public-radio station, KQED,
> played a clip from the end of the speech that included the unattributed
> phrase "nattering nabobs of negativity." (http://bit.ly/3KIGEi starting at
> about 49:32 <http://bit.ly/3KIGEi%20starting%20at%20about%2049:32> )
>
>
>
> In a similarly alliterative but more original vein, Booker also exhorted the
> graduates not to join "the denizens of divisiveness"-and he pronounced that
> last word "dih-VISS-ive-ness." (I think this pronunciation has been
> discussed on this list.)
>
>
>
> Was Booker, a Democrat, channeling the ghost of Nixon's vice president?
> "Nattering nabobs of negativism" was famously coined by William Safire for a
> speech given by Spiro Agnew to the 1972 Republican Convention in San Diego.
> That speech also included "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
> More about the Safire/Agnew collaboration here: http://bit.ly/L8R2Mv
>
>
>
> Nancy
>
>
>
> _______
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