Kyle Gann posted this note on his blog, PostClassic:
Thank You, Sarah Palin
We in American music owe a great debt to John McCain and Sarah Palin. Those two have so cheapened and tainted the word “maverick” that it will be at least a generation, maybe two, before anyone will be able to use the word non-ironically again. And that means, surely, that there will be no more talk about the “American maverick composers.”
As I’ve written here before, the musicological purpose of the word “maverick” is to legitimize certain handpicked composers despite the unconventionality (as compared with alleged European norms) of their composing methods, and to do so without de-marginalizing all the other composers who share those methods. What we need is for the methods themselves to be legitimized, so that a true pluralism of aesthetics can be accepted into discourse. The “maverick” image of Cage, Nancarrow, Lou Harrison, La Monte Young as lone dissenters – composers who, after all, had teachers, friends, students, protégés with whom they shared ideas and developed their creativity collectively – was always a palpable fiction. And no one who watched Palin vacuously self-identify as a maverick at the end of the vice-presidential debate will ever be able to use the word seriously again, thank god.
“Maverick musicians” isn’t the only term that may be taken out of circulation. With only a few days to go, there are a few others with limited lifespans:
“my friends” (although better than “my fellow prisoners”)
mavericky (thank you Tina Fey and Seth Myers)
socialist (that’s so last century)
“spreading the wealth”
folkisms like betcha, doncha, gosh darn it
children’s names that are better suited for pets
“verbage” (not a real word, but conveniently rhymes with garbage…)
“community organizer” sneeringly used as a pejorative
hockey mom
lipstick (on anything untoward)
Others?
those Washington elite (pronounced like Coke Lite; and never again paired like that)
Allowing the seeing of another country outside one’s window as a major criteria for foreign policy expertise. Hey, I lived a stone’s throw from Canada for two years. Much more challenging than Russia. I could actually visit. Like seeing my neighbor’s garden outside my window qualifying me for horticultural expertise.
Wall Street versus Main Street: post-election, all Main Street signs should be incacerated.
I look at small towns and I see America. (Uh, I look at NYC and see Jews, druggies, terrorists, communists, abortionists, never mind that Wasilla is the meth capitol…)
Obama just palling around with terrorists ( do terrorists have time to pal around, what with all their conspiracies, I would think they and Obama pretty busy people with different agendas even if they were old pals)
I am not a member of a permanent political establishment. (Gosh, I’d really like to be though.)
Greats additions to the list QS, thanks so much.
Guys and Gals…
Joe the Plumber
Thanks Ybonesy, yes indeed.
And here are a few more from The New Yorker’s George Packer:
When this is all over, certain half-dead words will need to be put out of their misery with a quick bullet to the back of the head. My candidates for a mercy verbicide: pivot, tank, cave, pushback, gravitas, message, game-changer, challenges, the entire litany of Palinesque nouns, attack dog, battleground, pork-barrel, earmark, impacting, and impactful. Other words that are too important to be executed will need to undergo a long and painful rehabilitation before they can be safely used again: change, experience, straight, truth, lie, victory, character, judgment, populist, and elite.