“Refudiate,” “misunderestimate,” “wee-wee’d up.” English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”
-@sarahpalinusa on twitter.com, July 18th, 2010

It appears if though the former half-term Governor of Alaska has been allowed to play on her twitter feed unsupervised. The above tweet was her response as several patrons of the popular social networking website slammed Palin for a controversial posting earlier that same day asking New Yorkers to “refudiate” the construction of a Muslim mosque two blocks from the Ground Zero, the appropriately named hole in the ground that was the World Trade Center. Palin’s comments were stupid and bigoted, one tweeter responded by asking if we should remove churches near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, but the defensive tweet of the former almost-full term Governor has a fun and interesting point. English is a living language, and, yes Shakespeare invented new words that we still use today. I guess Palin must have learned something when she attended Hawaii Pacific University, or when she enrolled at North Idaho College, or when she transferred to University of Idaho in Moscow, or maybe when she attended Matanuska–Susitna College.

As we watch history unfold in front of our very eyes with Sarah Palin ushering us into a renaissance of verbal fortitude with these three new words, I was thinking back to my college Shakespearean studies. Which words did Billy create? Here are three equal to, if not greater than what Palin has offered us.

1) “Eyeball”, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii, Oberon to Puck.

“Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye; whose liquor hath this virtuous property, to take from thence all error with his might, and make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.”

Give it to Mr. Bard. That is a rather useful word.

2.)    “Hot-Blooded” King Lear, Act II, Scene iv, King Lear to Regan.

“Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her? Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took our youngest born, I could as well be brought to knee his throne, and, squire-like;”

Yes, this is more a term then a word, but what would the band Foreigner be without this sucker? I mean that “Hot-Blooded” reached #3 on the Billboard charts back in 1978. Speaking of the number three…

3.)    Epileptic King Lear, Act II, Scene ii, Kent to Cornwall.

“A plague upon your epileptic visage! Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain, I’ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.”

I wonder if anything Palin has tweeted will be used readily in the New England Journal of Medicine?

Although her molestation of the English language is bothersome on a good day, the point Palin attempted to make is clear. “Refudiate” sounds dim, and it is driving my spell check up the wall, but we know and understand what the former half-term Governor was attempting to communicate. “Misunderestimate” is well beyond brainless. A minor league epidemiologist could conclude this fictitious word is a Möbius strip of logic. But, we still understand what Palin is stabbing at; much in the way we understand “eyeball” and “hot-blooded”. Sarah Palin has her critics, I being among them if you haven’t guessed by now. Her antics are thoughtless and embarrassing, but I do believe that she learned something from her second stint at the University of Idaho (she enrolled twice, and they have a rather fine English department). English is a living language. As opposed to say Icelandic, it is accessible and simple. Which is why we still talk about Shakespeare centuries after his work was penned, and probably why we still pay attention to the former half-term Governor. I could argue Palin is wrong on many matters, but she is right about English. Now, if someone can just explain to me what “wee-wee’d up” means maybe I’ll stop calling her “former half-term Governor” and just call her Ms. Palin. Maybe.

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Timothy Braun is a writer living in Austin, TX. He has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, HERE Arts Center, Edward Albee Foundation, and a Warhol Fellowship at the Santa Fe Art Institute. He is a frequent contributor to the Austin Chronicle, culturebot.org, and is the founder of Federal Prisoner 30664. He holds an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and is a Cultural Studies professor at St. Edward’s University. Learn more at timothybraun.com.

Tagged in: portmanteau, Sarah Palin, semantics, Shakespeare