Trolling for Phone Sex?

…last Thursday the country experienced an uncomfortable moment when the President of the United States reassured us that the government['s collecting phone records] was not "trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." Apparently W's speech writing staff doesn't know that trolling is slang for an older gay man cruising for anonymous sex with younger men. [links in original]

Katrina vanden Heuvel, "Big Brother's Little Brother", The Huffington Post, 16 May 2006.

Posted on May 16, 2006 at 21.40 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Common-Place Book, Laughing Matters

2 Responses

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  1. Written by Chris
    on Tuesday, 16 May 2006 at 23.09
    Permalink

    does the word come in a White House transcript of the speech, or is it a reporter's transcription?

    While I recognise "trolling", the word I would use in a similar situation is "trawling", ie dragging a large net across the bottom of the ocean and gathering just about everything therein.

    It may be saying more about the reporter than about the president's speechwriters.

  2. Written by Bearcastle Blog
    on Wednesday, 17 May 2006 at 12.54
    Permalink

    Trawling for Meaning

    In a short posting yesterday ("Trolling for Phone Sex?") I quoted a paragraph about a curious use of the word "trolling" by the President, a word whose slang meaning is "to cruise for sex". In the comments, Chris pointed out that, in a similar si…

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