Frank & Kenneth
It was morning. Frank and Ken were up early enough to enjoy a leisurely continental breakfast before heading off to work, since this was at a time when they were both gainfully employed. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen and poured across the breakfast nook, where Ken was reading the newspaper's headlines to Frank.
"It quotes the President here as saying '…free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat,'" he read aloud. "What do you suppose 'the whim of a hat' is?"
Frank sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Presumably, given the Elmer-Fudd similarity in pronunciation, it's something near the rim, but obviously he couldn't refer to 'the rim of a hat' because it might make people think of rimming, which would itself be very naughty. Plus, it might come perilously close to reminding people of ass holes, which would be very unwise in itself, given the composition of his cabinet at the time."
Ken rattled the newspaper shut and set it on the table. "This past summer," he said as he stood up, "I was rather hoping that the phrase 'step up to the ball' would gain currency, but it seemed to pass rather quickly out of the au courant political lexicon for some reason."
Frank finished the last gulp of his coffee and stood up too. "I'm sure it would have except that it referred to 'balls', and so was nixed by the moral-values watchdogs. Do you think it's Freudian that these train-wreck clichés that the President keeps coming up with always seem to allude to body parts?"
"Well, I'm no big fan of Freud, but I expect you're right."
Frank set his coffee mug on the counter beside the sink, then they left for work together.
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on Wednesday, 28 September 2005 at 12.25
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To Some Extent
It's fun — indeed, one of my favorite pasttimes — to hear what new catch phrase politicians will come up with next. The phrases don't always catch on, but they keep trying; it seems there's a sort of verbal Darwinism at work.
A notable example …