Friday, February 10, 2012

SEVERELY BAD CHOICE OF WORDS, MITT

Mitt Romney just said this at CPAC:

...I fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but I was a severely conservative Republican governor.





Oliver Willis says on Twitter, "romneybot's internal thesaurus looked up 'very' and spouted out #severely." Sounds about right -- or, more likely, he hires speechwriters who are as tightly wound as he is. (And yup, #severely is now a hashtag.)

Want to know why this is a terrible choice of words, Mitt? Here's what people associate with the word "severe," according to Google autofill:




Ouch.

****

UPDATE: Odd New York Times headline:

Appealing to Activists, Romney Calls Himself 'Severely Conservative'

Shouldn't that be "Trying and Probably Failing to Appeal to Activists, Romney Calls Himself 'Severely Conservative'"?

7 comments:

proverbialleadballoon said...

santorum is severe diaper rash, so what's that make mittens?

c u n d gulag said...

Let's not forget, "severely retarded" - though I know that's not PC.

Mitt, dear, if you were "severe" in MA, you would have been thrown out of the state after being tarred and feathered.

What a putz!

Danp said...

Terminally, perhaps?

Michael Gee said...

This is the worst kind of lie, where the liar isn't even trying. Not even, no to be fair, especially, the gang at CPAC aren't going to believe it. Moreover, many will recognize that it shows Romney's contempt for them as a bunch of saps who believe whatever an authority figure such as himself says.
Which they do, but Mitt forgets he's not an authority figure yet.

joseph said...

Not one of these candidates can repudiate the vomitous group known as Vdare. Not one.

Joe5348

Cereal said...

No, "appealing to activists" is correct. "Appeal" means ask, beg, call for or request, as in appealing for mercy. That's what Mitt is doing there. Yes, "appeal" also means to please or seem good, as in "the possibility of a Romney Presidency does not appeal to most people.". But the former meaning is valid.

Steve M. said...

Well, it's ambiguous, I think, and one meaning is clearly wrong.