YOU'RE JUST FINISHED, THAT'S ALL

Marc Cooper on the left and Jonah Goldberg on the right have recently both argued (persuasively) that George Lakoff's faddish notion about Democrats improving their electoral chances by substituting euphemisms for unpopular phrases is no recipe for success. Though Lakoff's book "Don't Think About an Elephant" is apparently selling well, and it has been much talked about, I'm not even convinced it's much of a fad.

To start with, euphemisms and dysphemisms are nothing new in politics. Think "choice" for "abortion" (a liberal example of the former) and "death tax" for "estate tax" (conservative, the latter). But as much as I've read about the term in connection with Lakoff's book in outlets right and left, Lakoffisms like "public protection attorney" for "trial lawyer" and "poison-free communities" for "environmental protection," I never see them used except in articles about Lakoff.

And I tested the hypothesis: Punch poison-free communities -lakoff into Google and you get 16 total (7 real) results. Try "public protection attorney" -lakoff, and you get 6 results (likely 7, after this is posted). In Nexis, nothing comes up for poison-free communities andnot lakoff in any U.S. newspaper for the past 90 days. The final permutation yields just one result, and it's a letter to the Bergen, NJ Record. It begins:

"Maybe we would better appreciate the role that trial lawyers such as Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., serve if we call them "public-protection attorneys" vs. corporate lawyers who choose to defend the corporation, often placing public well-being at risk."

So in other words, he just failed to mention George Lakoff. Like so many other fads, this will be quickly forgotten. And if all of his ideas are this original, he'll go down in the annals of one-hit wonders along with Right Said Fred and Dexy's Midnight Runners.

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posted by WWB at 5:49 PM |