Part 2 of my lexicon of presidential-campaign buzzwords—guillotine to super PAC—was published today on the Visual Thesaurus. You’ll have to subscribe to read it (and Part 1), and of course I hope you will. Meanwhile, here’s an outtake from the column, cut to keep the list to an even dozen:
Meh. The monosyllabic expression of disappointment has been used for the Republican contest in general and especially for candidate Romney, who has failed to generate much enthusiasm among voters. Punning on the candidate’s name, reporters and humorists started referring to “Meh Romney.” (There’s even a Tumblr blog where you can download a Meh Romney poster.) Meh was popularized by a 1995 episode of “The Simpsons” (“Lisa’s Wedding”), but Visual Thesaurus executive producer Ben Zimmer has traced it further back to a Yiddish source.
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