I’ve been wincing for months — every time someone uses the word teabagger on the air. Sometimes it’s the Tea Party people themselves, seemingly ignorant of the word’s original crude meaning. At other times it’s been liberals who seem to take great delight in the double entendres they are able to play with on the air.
Ignorance and childishness. Two things I really hate to see on the national news. I kept hoping the word would go away, but just the opposite seems to have happened. Today the New Oxford American Dictionary announced its 2009 word of the year, unfriend, and sure enough, there on the list of runner-up words is teabagger.
Ouch. Legitimized by Oxford. Well, maybe the new usage will supplant the old and eventually I’ll get desensitized. I hope.
(By the way, the Urban Dictionary is a good place to find out why teens — and childish news anchors — are snickering at something you said.)