Some months ago, Ray objected, in the comments of this entry, to my use of “King George” to refer to the Cock-up–in–Chief of the United States:
Being a loyal subject of HM QE2, I have to take issue with your continued use of the phrase 'King George' as a derogatory term - you are being very unkind to real kings. I believe 'Despot George' or 'Dictator George' would be much more descriptive of what he really is, though I must say they don't have anywhere near the same ring to them. Of course, there are many more colourful phrases I would prefer to use, but this is, after all, a public forum.Ray, of course, was being (mostly) silly (oh, those Brits!), and I, of course, have continued to and will continue to use the moniker in these pages.Perhaps we should have a contest to choose a new name for him.
But another Brit, Deborah, of “litbrit”, has used another good term that I hadn't noticed before:
I'm as guilty of this as the next person: when Spurious George's über-advisor Karl Rove performed an inexplicably dumb rap performance-attempt at the most recent White House Correspondents' Dinner [...]What a great name, with its comparison of the Smirking Chimp to the children's character, plus the reference to the illegitimacy of his reign!
Now, Deborah didn't coin the term; there is, in fact, a web site that calls it its own — the Spurious George site is subtitled “The megalomaniacal monkey from Midland”. Still, litbrit's the one who brought it to my attention, so she gets credit for that here.
So yes, I'll still be using “King George”. But now there's another term at the ready, useful because I like to vary things so as not to be too dull.
4 comments:
Well I quite like Cock-up in Chief. Says it all really, but there are so many names you could give him, there's so much about him to make fun of.
I'll be honest, the nickname Spurious George occurred to me some time ago while I was reading one of the Curious George books to my youngest (yes, the goofy grinning monkey was a trigger-image!), and I began using the term in conversation thereafter; I had no idea there was a website of the same name, but hey, great minds think alike and everything. It matters not who thought of it first; it matters a great deal that the pathetic primate in question be held accountable for his criminal mischief. Not holding my breath, though.
P.S. Just checked out that site--and OMG, how funny (if a bit slow to load). Thanks for the heads-up.
I also wanted to share the name (for the Preznit) coined a while back by my pal TRex at Firedoglake:
Chimpy McFlightsuit
Cheers,
D.
Ah, then you can get credit for independent coinage, rather like independent discovery. And I'm glad you like the spuriousgeorge web site.
A friend of mine used to call him "Flightsuit Boy". "Chimpy McFlightsuit" is OK too, but for some reason I tend not to go for the "McXyz" sorts of names (I'd think it'd be from annoyance at the "Gray's Anatomy" habit of "McDreamy" and "McSteamy" and so on, but my aversion predates that TV show).
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