Most Notable Quotations of 2012?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:
>
> Ben Bernanke:  "Under current law, on January 1, 2013, there's going to be a
> massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases."  According to
> Paul Waldman, http://prospect.org/article/whos-blame-fiscal-cliff-misnomer,
> this was the first use of "fiscal cliff" to refer to what Wonkblog more
> accurately calls the austerity crisis.

Speaking of which:

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165545239/the-origin-of-the-term-fiscal-cliff
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/falling-off-the-fiscal-cliff/

> Rick Perry:  "Oops."  Unfortunately, the full quote is so inarticulate (which
> is sort of the point) that it isn't very quotable.

...except it's from 2011. (It was #5 on Fred's list last year.)

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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