"The genius of democracies," wrote de Tocqueville, "is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express." And when it comes to new political words, what better place to look than in the names of politicians? From Aristophanes on, onomastic word-play has been a way of sorting the genius of democracy from the dunce. Helpfully, New Labour has served up a succession of politicians whose names chime perfectly with the bland, milky corporatism of their politics: Blair, Blears, Byers, Blunkett, Beckett, two Browns, one Balls, Milburn, Banks and a Millbank full of Milibands. The results, though, have been disappointing. The ubiquitous Tony Bliar is hardly inspired. Vince Cable's Gordon Bean is hopeless. Fans of satirical invention can only glance enviously across the pond at the neologisms of 2008 and wonder what American English would have done with such material.
Obama may have stormed the ballot, but the biggest winner of the election campaign was the portmanteau, the linguistic shotgun wedding that gives us such strange bedfellows as Bennifer, Brangelina and Billary. So McCain was labeled McBush and his supporters McCainiacs, while Obama's adherents were caricatured as brainwashed Obamatons. His speeches, meanwhile, were obambastic, his tactics barackavellian, his elderly supporters baractegenarians, and his putative administration Obamalot. Alright, so most of these may be utter obamanations. But they're better than the mere witless barracking we're used to.
Outside of candidates' names, the language of the election was notable for the freedom of suffix-formation it afforded: –holic (e.g. infoholic), -nomics (carbonomics) and -licious (er, Obamalicious) all had good campaigns. And of course, no American political cycle would be complete without a –gate, which has of course migrated from its original context in Watergate to taint any word it touches with scandal. Ayersgate, Wrightgate, Lipstickgate and Troopergate all made it into the lexicon, even if the actual 'scandals' never made it past the starting gate. The ever-available adjectival suffix '-y', meanwhile, was given a boost by two comediennes, Tina Fey offering us the unorthodox mavericky and Sarah Silverman the unforgivable civil-rightsy.
What a shame, then, that America's most wonderful rear-ender, -ass, remains sullied with lowbrow status. A tremendously productive black English vernacular intensifier, it can be easily tacked on to pump up any puny-ass adjective. We can only hope that once the nation gets used to a black premier leading its executive, it will eventually accept a black derrière following its adjectives. If so, -ass could one day usurp the likes of -al, -ic, –ish, and even -ous, which may be forced to choose, like an investment bank, between merging with its rival or perishing. Prediction, however, is always a dangerous game – a warning loudly sounded by my favourite coinage of 2008, which combines onomastic pun, portmanteau, -ass suffix and gratuitous abuse in one a mashed-up masterpiece: Nostradumbass.
Even bigger news than the election this year was the economic meltdown. And, just as the crisis spread from the financial sector to the real economy (or "Wall Street to Main Street," as the newly ubiquitous metonym has it), so its terminology has leaked into our lives. Toxic and contagion have found new reach in everyday English. Subprime now describes everything from dodgy consumer goods to ill-advised football transfers. Credit crunch itself, though, is to my mind a less valuable coinage. While the phrase has a certain alliterative appeal—with connotations ranging from cosmic cataclysm to cut-price breakfast cereal—it is also vague to the point of euphemism. The point, surely, is less the famine than the feast that preceded it. A new term is needed, combining crunch's suggestion of disaster with an emphasis on all that unsecured borrowing and lending. Collaterapse, perhaps, or never-neverlanche.
Indeed, the recession will be the ultimate test of the second half of de Tocqueville's aphorism. For while new words have certainly emerged, time will tell whether new ideas follow. To date, the most novel suggestion to get us out of the red is a massive investment in green. Admittedly, so far most of the actual innovation has remained in the linguistic field: it will be the green deal, pouring cash into green tech and green energy (including, somewhat surreally, green coal). Why, we've even managed to contribute to the profusion of verdancy on this side of the Atlantic, with the recent Greengate scandal. All right, so leaking of information and intimidation of opposition politicians might not be the newest ideas in political history. But with a bit of Green at the front, a -gate at the back, and a whole House seething with suppressed embarrassment and righteous indignation, it's surely an example of British democracy's peculiar genius.
