definitions, definitions, definitions
Yes. Donald Trump is a serious candidate for high office.
Donald Trump took to Twitter Tuesday to defend using the word “schlonged” to describe Hillary Clinton’s primary loss in 2008, saying the word is “not vulgar.”
“Once again, #MSM is dishonest. ‘Schlonged’ is not vulgar. When I said Hillary got ‘schlonged’ that meant beaten badly,” he said in one tweet.
Because when you hear the word “schlong”, and you think “penis”, that shows more onto you and where your head is at than it does the speaker Trump?
Moving on…
But Trump cited Tuesday what he said was a 1984 NPR report in which “schlonged” was used similarly to how he used it Monday.
“NPR’s @NealConan said ‘schlonged’ to WaPo re: 1984 Mondale/Ferraro campaign: ‘That ticket went on to get schlonged at the polls.’ #Hypocrisy”
The one news source they found to reverberate amongst the conservative media. I do like this bit of conspiracy in the comments section.
It appears that you submitted this 6 hours ago. An hour later NPR released this article, which is entitled “Trump: Clinton was ‘Schlonged in 2008 Nomination Race’ “. It looks like they hastily appended the Neal Conan revelation so they wouldn’t get accused of covering it up.
Always align a shady motive; never allow the possibility of an innocuous one.
Trump also retweeted political analyst Jeff Greenfield’s defense of the term, in which Greenfield declared that the term is “a commonplace NY way of saying: ‘I lost big time.'”
To be perfectly clear, the expression is by no means “commonplace” — in New York or elsewhere. It has never appeared in the New York Times (prior to this week) and does not appear to have been used in any New York paper early in the 20th century. It doesn’t appear in Irving Lewis Allen’s 1993 book, “The City in Slang,” which documents any number of lesser-known expressions that trickled out of New York City. And, as a point of personal privilege, it’s not something that I’m familiar with, having grown up upstate and lived in the city for most of the past decade.
But it has popped up a few times, as The Post’s Justin Moyer reported on Tuesday, including one usage in the exact same context — and in an interview with The Fix’s very own Chris Cillizza.
Next an appearance in 1974, and the observation that this will be spoken and not put into print.
And so the worm turns. I suppose if he were preparing for a hypothetical Barack Obama match-up, in an alternate universe where Obama had been schlonged in 2008, he might still use the word. The problem is, yes, of course we know Trump’s “plausible deniable” definition and how well it would be thrown out in casual definition. And we know the penis definition. And we can infer how interconnected the two definitions are. And we know Trump said something about the menstrual cycle for Megyn Kelly. And we can only imagine the gender gap of a Hillary Clinton — Donald Trump presidential match-up.
In other things of some informal Jewish / New York antecedent… Rand Paul taps Seinfeld for a Festivus routine.
And in other news of offensiveness politico fallout — Washington Post printed a stupid cartoon, and I suppose Ted Cruz is doing what any politico worth his salt will do (see too Hillary Clinton) and making the best political hay he can out of the faux pas.