Thread: Was Donald Trump right about ‘schlonged’ all along?

Was Donald Trump right about ‘schlonged’ all along?

By Philip Bump December 22 at 11:16 PM

In the news lull before much of America takes off for Christmas, Donald Trump's use of the word "schlonged" to describe Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary loss seized the public's imagination — or, according to our analysis of Google data, the imagination of that dismal subsection of the public that cares about politics.

The subtext of it all was that the term appeared to be a crass reference to the male anatomy. Or was it, as Trump suggested on his personal newswire (Twitter) on Tuesday night, just a term for losing an election badly?

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.

In March of 2011, Cillizza was interviewed by NPR's Neil Conan to discuss the then-recent death of 1984 Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Conan, who was born in Beirut but grew up in New York City, used the expression to describe the outcome of that race, which Ferraro and Walter Mondale lost overwhelmingly.

CONAN: Chris Cillizza, that ticket went on to get schlonged at the polls, but that's a historic moment.

CILLIZZA: Absolutely historic moment, Neal, but as you point out, lost 49 states. The only state that that ticket won, which was led by Walter Mondale, was his home state of Minnesota.

A veritable schlonging. (The word didn't impress itself upon Cillizza at the time, he said over email Tuesday evening, nor does it seem to have fazed him during the interview.)

There are other examples, pointed out by linguist Ben Zimmer in an article at Politico. He also notes that Google's index of books turns up some examples, such as from "Welcome, Sinner" by Richard Posner, published in 1974.

Slang like "schlonged" wouldn't normally crop up in written journalism, of course. That it appears in a radio broadcast, where editing is trickier, isn't really a surprise. Conan, like Trump, is in his late 60s, suggesting that there may be a generational aspect to its use. Lots of words that were common and unremarkable decades ago are now viewed as disrespectful or inappropriate, of course, but Trump, it seems, might well be right.

We have to point out how Cillizza's remarks in that 2011 "Talk of the Nation" segment end. He compares Ferraro's uniqueness as a candidate to another candidate who gave it a shot only three years before Chris was speaking.

"[G]roundbreaking in its way," Cllizza said, "but one fascinating tidbit: We still don't have a woman president, and we had a female, obviously, nominee, with Hillary Clinton, and she lost the nomination."

She got beaten very badly, in fact. If I were a few decades older, there's a term I might use.

This post has been updated with the additions from Zimmer.
Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He is based in New York City.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ged-all-along/

Well, gee, Washington Post, that's really nice of you and Phillip Bump to clear the record. So Trump was right again. Thank you very much for spending the time to investigate this crucial matter and publishing the truth. I mean that, I really do. I hope you will always do that. Americans have sacrificed a great deal to defend our nation, Constitution and the First Amendment that gives you all the freedom to write and say anything you want so we as readers and viewers can know the truth about news and important issues and events. When you sway from that deliberately or out of stupidity, either way, our nation is less as a result, when the purpose of our free press was for us to be more.

Merry Christmas!

Why start another thread on this very specific topic? Posting a new thread on this isn't going to make all of these facts go away:

http://www.alipac.us/f9/trump-makes-...reak-d-326552/

For people who just want the wheat without the chaff.

NPR Used ‘Schlonged’ to Describe Geraldine Ferraro in 2011
Associated Press

by JOEL B. POLLAK
23 Dec 2015

Donald J. Trump is still coming under fire from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the media, including National Public Radio (NPR), for using the term “schlonged” to describe her defeat in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Trump insists that the term is not vulgar, and merely describes “beaten badly.”

Certainly that is the way NPR itself used the term in 2011, in a discussion with political reported Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post.

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan was discussing the recent passing of Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be nominated for Vice President. Apparently, Cilizza did not object to the term “schlonged,” nor did NPR’s Mara Liasson:

CONAN: And Chris Cillizza, that ticket went on to get schlonged(ph) at the polls, but that’s a historic moment.

Mr. CILLIZZA: Absolutely historic moment, Neal, but as you point out, lost 49 states. The only state that that ticket won, which was led by Walter Mondale, was his home state of Minnesota. I would say it was historic in another way, not just that Geraldine was the first woman to be on a major party ticket, but my father, my Italian father, would be – would not be happy if I did not mention she was the first Italian-American also to be on a major party ticket.
So groundbreaking in its way, but one fascinating tidbit: We still don’t have a woman president, and we had a female, obviously, nominee, with Hillary Clinton, and she lost the nomination.

The inestimable David Martosko of the Daily Mail has a roundup of other examples of the term’s occasional use in a non-vulgar context, including by several major media outlets. The term derives from a Yiddish word for “penis.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journal...rraro-in-2011/

Yes! Thank you Newmexican. Thank you John Pollack. Thank you Breitbart.

Merry Christmas!