Meghan McCain Declares That Standard English Usage And Grammar Is Not Pop Culturally Relevant To Her Generation

She's talking about Sarah Palin, knocking her, and saying that Michele Bachmann is the thinking man's Palin.

I don't care what she says. As Newt Gingrich might say, "And you are...?"

What I care about is how she says it.

“I famously said a statement earlier where I said Michele Bachmann was the poor man’s Sarah Palin. I am completely wrong. This is the thinking man’s Sarah Palin.”

"I famously..."

It wasn't famous. The word you're looking for, bubble-head, is "notoriously," I guess, except no one except you would believe that statement gained any notoriety.

The word you probably actually mean is "once." Like, "I once said."

But your brain skips over the right word, even though it's the easy, obvious word. Because you babble like a baby.

"...said a statement..."

What? I am literally laughing out loud.

What language are you speaking?

Right before giving this interview, did someone shoot you in the head with an Idiot Gun?

You "said a statement"?

You "famously said a statement"?

Wait, you're a paid professional writer and commentator, right? I mean, you're not just some guy collecting bets in a cockfighting bar, right? You're paid specifically to string English words together into sensible patterns, right?

"I am completely wrong."

This is more subtle, but the proper way any native English speaker would say this is "I was wrong," as she's referring, of course, to a previous belief, no abandoned and repudiated; obviously she thinks she's currently right.

This is what a non-native speaker of English might say, and then you'd explain it to him, and he'd say "Ah yes, I see I see."

There are millions of people who can't speak or write in America. Including supposedly native speakers.

But you don't see them as paid analysts on TV very often. Or as paid columnists.

And the funny thing is, her big rap on Palin is that Palin hasn't earned the outsized influence she's been granted.

Or, as Meghan McCain might say, I famously once said a statement that Meghan McCain is a sillyass goof and a half.

More: I didn't even see the rest of the horror show.

“I think she’s… this is going to get me in trouble, but I actually think she’s just more smarter,” explained McCain.

“I think that she’s more um, you know, on foreign policy, I mean I just think all the things she’s done, the debates, I’ve been very impressed,” continued McCain, “and I just think she’s older and more established, and you know, she’s been a member of Congress for a very long time.”

JWF dryly adds:

Bachmann has been in Congress since 2007.

Anytime someone proclaims you "more smarter," well, I consider that accolade to be on the plane of the Nobel Prize.

Meghan McCain is like the Jigsaw of sensible expression. She puts words into grueling death traps of perverse design and you're on tenterhooks wondering which parts of the language will survive.

posted by Ace at 02:03 PM

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