Sarah Palin’s ‘Refudiate’ Named 2010 Word Of The Year

by Ray Rahman | 2:48 pm, November 15th, 2010

» 25 comments

One musn’t underestimate the power Sarah Palin wields. Her massive influence has touched a lot of spheres of American life, and she’s now making her mark on an unlikely one—lexicography. First her term ‘hockey mom’ broke into the New Oxford American Dictionary. Now her portmanteau ‘refudiate’ has been declared by that same dictionary as the 2010 Word of the Year.

According to the Oxford University Press:

From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used “refudiate,” we have concluded that neither “refute” nor “repudiate” seems consistently precise, and that “refudiate” more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of “reject.”

The word, of course, originates from a botched tweet for which she was heavily mocked. She’s since defended the word in another tweet, likening her wordplay to that of William Shakespeare. And while the laughter only doubled after that, it seems her efforts have been rewarded after all. Her continued recognition from the relevancy-hungry Oxford University Press sets her apart from, say, George W. Bush, whose own bastardization of the English language (“strategery,” etc) has been generally…well, refudiated.

New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford Word of the year, Refudiate, Sarah Palin

Harry Flashman

Those popping noises you hear are liberal heads exploding.

Heh.
Harry Flashman

Oh, and I see that the debut of her show on TLC set a record for that channel with over 5,000,000 (that’s 5 MILLION) viewers.

Ah, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in liberal land this stormy day. The liberal snark may now begin.

Popcorn, anyone?
paulmdoro

Harry Flashman said:
Oh, and I see that the debut of her show on TLC set a record for that channel with over 5,000,000 (that’s 5 MILLION) viewers.

Ah, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in liberal land this stormy day. The liberal snark may now begin.

Popcorn, anyone?

Some people like mindless entertainment. Nothing wrong with that. How else do you explain the fact that 15 or 20 million people watch Two-and-a-Half Men every week?
Harry Flashman

@paulmdoro

“How else do you explain the fact that 15 or 20 million people watch Two-and-a-Half Men every week”

Heh. Good shot.
Lurker

HAHAHA Sarah Palin wins again!
Hawk11

And people wonder why this country is 49th in the world in literacy. Thanks Sarah.
Greg

Lurker said:
HAHAHA Sarah Palin wins again!

In what ways does this represent a “win”? She demonstrated only glancing knowledge of college level vocabulary in combining two separate words, was roundly (and correctly) made fun of for it, and now her mental bungling has been forever codified into the language… A pyrrhic victory at best.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-White/1479114225 Robert White

Bush never said “strategery”. Palin never said “I can see Russia from my house.” These were from SNL skits. Both Palin and Bush have made several malapropisms and mispronunciations.

So has Obama (e.g. “corpse-man” for “corpsman” – correctly pronounced “core-man”), but they are not breathlessly reported as evidence of his ignorance.
Big_F-ing_Deal

Harry Flashman said:
Those popping noises you hear are liberal heads exploding.

Not even. Stephen Colbert got the honor on purpose (truthiness).

Sarah got it out of idiocy. You Righty’s can go ahead and be as proud as you want. lol
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dronetek-Bulk-Vanderhuge/100000918732763 Dronetek

Hawk11 said:
And people wonder why this country is 49th in the world in literacy. Thanks Sarah.

Or why our kids think there are 57 states. Thanks Obama!
Probably NOT wrong

Good Dronetek!! Very good!
Jackie_Treehorn

Lesson: Make up a word so stupid the entire world repeats it while mocking you and it might become “Word of the Year”….
musiccityvic

Hawk11 said:
And people wonder why this country is 49th in the world in literacy. Thanks Sarah.

More likely due to the Liberal stranglehold on the education system.
Hawk11

Dronetek said:
Or why our kids think there are 57 states. Thanks Obama!

Obama poked fun at himself and noted his own mistake. Palin pokes fun at everyone who pokes fun at her for her mistakes.

musiccityvic said:
More likely due to the Liberal stranglehold on the education system.

Tell me about that “liberal stranglehold.”
ganymede

It’s amazing all the fuss being made about Sarah Palin. Her one outstanding quality is that she has media charisma and the response she gets is primarily from people who can relate to her charisma which, if the polls are to be believed, is no more than 25% of the population. Obviously, a lot of people do not find her of interest and wish she would fade away which eventually she will as most inauthentic creations of the media eventually do. She reminds me of Bush who one recognized as a phoney way before he got to the presidency. He had some education which hardly showed but her lack of education is clearly evident. Education is not just getting a college degree, it’s commonsense learning that one gets from real life experience. I don’t think the release of Bush’s new book is going to enhance his legacy. As Michael Moore says, the book belongs in the crime section of bookstores.Nonetheless, I get the impression that Palin thinks we, the general population, are stupid, otherwise she would have some shame or, at least, self-awareness about the damage she is doing to her immediate audience.
Pablo

Hawk11 said:
And people wonder why this country is 49th in the world in literacy. Thanks Sarah.

That’s out of the 57 states, right?
SarahP

Pablo said:
That’s out of the 57 states, right?

Just an fyi. A country is really quite different than a state. All 57 of them.
Thelonious Funk

It’s not all bad. The US ranks 83rd out of 45 in math.
SarahP

Thelonious Funk said:
It’s not all bad. The US ranks 83rd out of 45 in math.

Pablo will appreciate that.
hello11

I love this , So does My boyfriend.he is almost 11 years older than me.i met him on a hot place.
*Agelessbbw*.*com*. A’ ge is not a problem, It gives you a chance to meet your a’ ge g a’p matches. Maybe you wanna check it out or tell your friends
erwqrwr
jooce81

Hawk11 said:
And people wonder why this country is 49th in the world in literacy. Thanks Sarah.

ding ding.. Win.
M Colins

One of my favorite ironies is reading breathless replies about Palin’s intelligence (or purported lack thereof) on internet forums which are themselves not shining examples of grammar, prose, or wit.

There are two reasons this amounts to much ado about nothing. First, knee jerk types who detest Rightwingers reflexively characterize Republicans in one or both of two ways. Either they are Evil or Stupid. Evil is one they haven’t been able to have stick on Palin so Stupid it is. In the pursuit of marginalizing all Republicans this way they happily and blithely ignore their own sides treasury of fine examples of “stupidity”. Obama and Biden alone have provided countless examples of the same thing that gets Leftwingers heads shaking in self assured superiority when some hapless conservatives utters it. Ultimately its all political.

Secondly, the idea that a mashup word like “refudiate” is automatically evidence of a low IQ is itself idiotic since contemporary English is replete with examples of plastic uses of the language. New words are literally made up every day all over the culture, some of them with origins in technology, some with theirs in socio economic status, some in communications, etc etc. It points to Englishes amazing variety and flexibility. In many areas of culture the folks who do this are hailed as quick wits and innovators.

Coming from anyone else Refudiate would have been noticed as a fairly clever and useful new word. Refute and repudiate have similar meanings and together they make something which at the very least is clever. But as we have seen right in this discussion we revert to the first principle and the usual suspects are quite self assured this is born of idiocy (where similar faux pas from Lefties are unimportant or immaterial and not evidence of anything)
fizeit

The point is that Palin didn’t invent the word to show her nuanced understanding of an issue. She simply made an error, by combining two words into one. I admit it has its charms — and its potential for satire and parody has been virtually unlimited. but please don’t give credit to the coiner of the term; it’s just that her lapses are so delicious, they immediately pass into folk culture: Russia from my window, writing notes on palm, and yes, yes, refudiate.
J Baustian

Hawk11 said:
And people wonder why this country is 49th in the world in literacy. Thanks Sarah.

That would be because of a high rate of illegal immigration. I taught for awhile in at a high school in south Texas, very near the Rio Grande; many of my 9th grade and 11th grade students were functionally illiterate. Their attendance rates were very poor, and they were only enrolled because under state law they were still too young to drop out. As soon as they hit that magic age, they were gone forever, never again to set foot in an American or Mexican classroom.
J Baustian

fizeit said:
“Russia from my window”

Wasn’t that Tina Fey?