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Re: Prejudice!

Posted by Flyguy on November 14, 2004

In Reply to: Re: Prejudice! posted by TheFallen on November 14, 2004

: : : : : : : : I read this in an AP story this moring. Someone accused, or at least suspected, of a crime was "...economical with the truth...".

: : : : : : : : The dateline was London. Is this a fairly common British phrase or is some reporter being cute?

: : : : : : : From this site:

: : : : : : : Meaning
: : : : : : : Conveying an untrue version of events by leaving out the important facts. A euphemism for lying, in short.
: : : : : : : Origin
: : : : : : : Recorded from the 18th century, although rarely used. Brought into the contemporary language by the UK Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, who used the phrase during the Australian 'Spycatcher' trial in 1986.

: : : : : : A rather pretentious variant was that of the late Minister, Alan Clark, who used the phrase, 'economical with the actualité' to mean the same thing.

: : : : : : DFG

: : : : :
: : : : : Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey ...."Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?" I guess it goes with the political territory.

: : : : I think we can add "Flyguy" to the relatively short list of Republican contributors to this site. SS

: : : Oh dear. I'm to be branded with the scarlet "R".

: : Smokey! You guys are keeping a list? But that's our job! Oh well, just spell my name right.

: I think it's cruelly unfair to imply that Republicans are less literate and/or interested in language than others. Over recent years, Dubya himself has done more to enrich the English language with word and phrase neologisms than almost anybody else. My personal favourite is "nucular", which is an adjective used to describe something that very definitely and without a doubt exists until it is actively looked for, whereupon it very definitely doesn't exist and never did. I think it's a little like Schroedinger's cat.

Is my memory faulty or was Jimmy Carter the original NUCULAR engineer? I don't think it's original with our current President.(The one who was reelected with a mandate).