Sarah and the morphologisms

Sarah Palin may have gone viral with her apparent malapropism on Twitter -- "refudiate" -- but she's also created what I (ahem) have dubbed a "morphologism".

That's based on a contest run by the Washington Post a few years ago, in which readers were invited to create new words from existing words using just one letter. You could add, delete or change a letter to make this new word. My favorites were:

• karmageddon -- that's like, a really bad scene? where all the bad stuff that everyone's ever done comes back on them? and people get killed? and everything's destroyed? and it's, like, a real bummer? and
• reintarnation -- the belief that when you die, you come back in the next life as a hillbilly

Another example is one the British humourist Denis Norden coined: tauntering. He described that as a "labour-saving word to describe one man tottering (carrying a load of stuff) while another was sauntering (and carrying nothing)". Of course, the fact that he had to expend so much labour on explaining what the word meant rather defeated the labour-saving intent, but there you go ...

Anyway, the Post didn't really have a name for this type of new word, so I came up with one: morphologism -- from a couple of Greek words meaning changing a word.

Alas, I don't think the Post ever re-ran the contest, which is personally disappointing because not only had I coined a term for these words, I'd started thinking of some of my own, to wit:

• pestulence -- the state in which your home is overrun by teenage girls
• decafitation -- in which, until you've had that first cup of coffee, you just can't get your head into things

And now comes the ex-gov., with refudiate. It may come across initially as a malapropism -- named after Mrs Malaprop, in Richard Sheridan's 1775 restoration comedy, The Rivals, who mangled the language with such remarks as "promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, from your memory" and "Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!". (Other examples include the weasel character in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, who said that all his information had been "duly corrugated" and the sportscaster who commented on a contract dispute with a player that was settled when the club president stepped in: "xxxxx has a way of getting involved and exacerbating the situation".)

But refudiate actually makes some sense, AND it's a one-letter change in an existing word. The definition is a bit of a challenge, but that's not what's important right now. I'd like to have some fun with this and see what others come up with. Submit your suggestions as comments, and please make sure I know how to reach you. Might even find a prize to send to the best one -- although that's a little like tying a pork chop around my neck so my dog will play with me.

And I don't even have a dog.

The cussin' mayor

Reams have been written about Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson's recent unguarded moment in front of a live microphone and reams more will likely come. For those who haven't heard, the mayor was caught on tape using profanities in describing some of the speakers at a public meeting on some city hall plans. We tend to be so cutesy about rude language: I've had just about enough of the expression "dropped the F-bomb" in the past couple of days.


Hizzoner is by no means alone in the league of leaders caught saying or doing rude things. There was Richard Nixon, caught on tape using male anatomical references to describe Pierre Trudeau; Trudeau, for that matter, raising his middle finger to protesters outside his train in Salmon Arm, BC; Ronald Reagan doing a mike check and saying “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”


There are others (although I greatly doubt whether Queen Elizabeth would really say "buggah!" when her Land Rover broke down, as portrayed by Helen Mirren in "Queen").


But politics aside, what bothers me is the rush to justification for using profanity. One columnist in the Vancouver Sun came out with a "history" of the F-Bomb. Another cited a study that found profanity is a reaction to pain. It's as if people who are offended need to lighten up -- "everybody" does it now (in a follow-up story, Mayor Gregor talked frankly about his language on the rugby field in younger days) and we should be more tolerant. Translation: don't get outraged; just acquiesce and abase ourselves to accommodate the lowest common denominator -- even if we voted for him. (I didn't.)

Apparently, someone got paid for that study, which really could have been published in the journal Duh. I could have saved them a lot of money with my own experience -- or at least, cashed the check, myself. As a 22-year-old acting student in London, we were given an exercise to imagine that a heavy metal gate had slammed shut on our hand and then act out our reaction.

Being of a "progressive" mind at the time, my "acting" involved grimacing in pain and "dropping the f-bomb", and then adding la bombe "c*", in French, just to show off my bilingual gifts.


Later that afternoon, I went back to my squalid little garret in a B&B a few blocks away, and as I closed the door I was distracted by something: a gust of wind blew the door shut on my hand, thereby proving that my "performance" in class was amazingly true-to-life. But I digress ...


To me, profanity is a cop-out: it's the mark of a badly written play, an unfunny comedian or a punk who tries to project a tough-kid image. When I came to Christ, one of the changes that happened to me was that I became greatly offended at hearing the f-word and other profanity. I used to have a rather foul mouth, myself; profanity still slips out on occasion, I'm ashamed to say -- even ashamed if it happens when I'm alone and supposedly no one can hear me.

Swearing is a reaction to pain? That's the same as a wounded animal -- but aren't we actually higher beings than animals? The Bible also warns us against acting like the heathens: we are to follow the way God wants us to follow -- not the base reactions of animals.

But it seems that the world's agenda has always been to try to get us to accept that we're really no better than the animals -- and considering we're supposed to be caring for and protecting them and all of God's Creation, that's kind of a silly concept. We can't allow ourselves to be dragged down by excusing "animalistic" behaviour -- whether it's in our actions or our words.

The Commandments God gave us -- for our own protection, don't forget -- involve dealing with situations in ways that don't involve reacting like animals but responding like children of God: with circumspection, wisdom and, at the heart of it all, with prayer. As with everything else, though, following those commandments is a "learned behaviour" -- which is why we have to be commanded to do it, come to think of it. We can also do what David did, and call on God to set a watch over our mouths. I might point out that David was under a whole lot more pain and pressure than Mayor Gregor. We can do it: it just takes a sense of responsibility and a refusal to let ourselves and others excuse base behaviour.

Jesus, James and Paul all warn us to watch our tongues and not to give offence: Jesus says that if we so much as call someone a fool, we're in danger of hellfire. How much more do we risk by calling someone a " ******* hack"?





*That would be the French word for the wine cup Jesus passed around at The Last Supper -- it's apparently one of the vilest things you can say to a Quebecois, as I found out when I jokingly (I thought) said it to Rene Simard when I was his dialogue coach on his English-language TV show. He looked like I'd hit him with a halibut. When I realized the impact of what I'd done, the show was long out of production and contrition was a bit late.