The Lingo Corner
Let’s send out a big Huzzah to Ben Sasse of Nebraska, for his crack about "the jackassery we often see around here." Here being that great deliberative body, the United States Senate, where giants crawl the earth -- lions, and male ones too, like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, who are not afraid to charge a judge, to her face, with being soft on pedophilia and hard on racist babies.
Jackassery is a gratifying word to pronounce, even if it's coincidental that your name is pronounced like sass. Jackassery is edgy yet down-home, even old-fashioned. It's aggressive, with that hard ack, that dismissive jack as in "Hit the road, Jack," followed by a hiss.
If you tossed assholery around on the Senate floor, you’d just be another jackass yourself. And assholiness would hint of religion.
Truth is, people come out with asshole far too freely today -- hilarious, incredible, amazing and asshole. These words are worn out, they lack force. Here's another word that I'm tired of hearing: bad-ass. The other day in a coffee shop I heard somebody say, "This is one bad-ass muffin." If you regard yourself as bad-ass, you can pride yourself on any amount of asininity. Cruz and Graham probably like hearing themselves think to themselves, “You, sir, are a bad-ass.” Well, maybe with muffin.
Does jackassery rhyme with anything? Catastrophe is close. Brasserie, I guess. Antimacassary might describe an antiquated decor.
One thing for sure: donkeys don't deserve to be associated with Cruz, Graham and the like. A site called theconversation.com quotes Mark Twain's complaint that a jackass is in fact an animal of good character, and yet "instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt." That is quintessential Twain, that "left in doubt." Also the “we.”
Baseball is back!
So here's another in our award-winning series of limericks about men who are awful:
A loud foul fellow named Homer
Is always away -- he's a roamer.
And single. And short.
In every sort
Of way, he's Mr. Misnomer.
Ben Sasse might be more than a waste of DNA if the little Jackass hadn't voted "No" in the Judiciary Committee and then "No" in the Senate, just like all the other jackasses (actually, I'm thinking of another word, seven letters, starts with "f" and ends with "t") with "R" after their names mistakenly thinking of themselves as Good Americans who populate the right side of that chamber (which they quickly emptied after recording their votes and losing).
Here's some other words from Twain, written in 1873, that stand the test of time: "Consider a congressman; then consider an idiot. Bah - I repeat myself."
Jackassery, from Ben Sasse-Ery ? Or is that just too easy?