2402 Pasquinade

Words is funny.  The way we use them.  The way we think we know what they mean.  The many times we don't.  How little difference it all makes.

Two examples.  Sarah Palin recently appeared at a conference in front of Iowa Republicans and her teleprompter malfunctioned, so she didn't have the words in front of her in the exact order they were supposed to be.  Undeterred, forthright, and roguish person that she is, she launched into an incoherent and rambling rant.

Conservative attendees called her speech "coarse" and "bizarre."  NationalReview.com, no slouch in the conservative department itself, though apparently with a larger vocabulary, said that Palin had collapsed into "self-parody" and "ignominious pasquinade." 

Harsh words indeed.  I think. I, like I'm sure many of the Review's reviewers, had no idea what pasquinade meant until I looked it up.  It means "public satire or lampoon" in case you're interested. 

Whatever.  Sure sounds cool though.  Ignominious pasquinade.  Kind of like a review for a wine.  Or a delicacy in a fine restaurant.  Yes, I'll have the ignominious pasquinade, please.  Medium rare if you don't mind.

No matter, as a Harvard researcher recently proved, most people believe whatever nonsense you put out there.  According to The Week magazine, he used a random text generator to write a phony study and then had the gibberish accepted for publication by 17 medical journals.  You know, the ones they always use as reviewers in the phrase "a journal reviewed study."

For some reason, even the study's title didn't give it away: "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs." 

Hmmm.  I wonder if the study was accidentally placed in Sarah Palin's teleprompter and it didn't malfunction after all.

When it comes to describing Sarah Palin, I like Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs way better than ignominious pasquinade. 

America, ya gotta love it.