On Sunday former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin tweeted refudiate and joined the ranks of those who’ve used in public what Mark Twain once called “the almost right word.”
She later changed the word to refute (she probably meant repudiate) and excused her lapse(s), saying English is “a living language” and comparing herself to Shakespeare.
Palin’s comparison to the Bard is apt, but not for the reason she intended. Shakespeare also used malapropisms; they were a stock comedic device associated with people of low social class. In Much Ado about Nothing, the character Dogberry uses them so often that another name for malapropism is Dogberryism. Examples:
- “First, who think you the most desertless man to be constable?”
- “You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lantern. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince’s name.”
- “It shall be suffigance.”
Palin isn’t the first or the last to famously get her words in a tangle. Fortunately, no harm was done, and we may have had a chance to clarify the difference in meaning between two uncommon words.
This incident gives teachers one more teachable moment in vocabulary development. Diction matters, not just in essays, but also in text messages and tweets.
In hearing of the tweet, I laughed aloud and internally condemned Twitter and how inane the comments generally are. However, in reading your response I considered the program in an entirely new way: using it to teach important and standard ideas about words. This is the perfect way to show that diction matters, and I am sure to use this as an example this year. Thanks.