Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Phrase of the Day: “Lo-info voters”



Lo-info voters  (better yet: Lo-info votors -- that started out as a typo, but it works) is a nicely assonant, spruced-up and slimmed-down version of the newly fashionable phrase, low-information voters.  In origin, it is a euphemism for a certain ill-informed segment of the electorate; but -- especially given that, in the Internet age, there is really no excuse for being uninformed -- the phrase has been seized-upon by columnists and miscellaneous wits   as a sort of synonym -- and now, no euphemism, but a wink-wink stinging epithet -- for  
knuckle-dragging   nose-picking   cross-eyed  slack-jawed   fartingdrooling   morons :
or, to put the matter more elegantly (we must cater to our refined audience here),
les arriérés de l’Amérique profonde. 
Whether the phrase will take root in this use, or prove a semantic mayfly, history will tell:  but it is part of a great tradition.

[to be continued ... ]

No comments:

Post a Comment