The ballots have been cast, and the public has spoken. But it's what we the people say that will determine whether our language will be better off than it was four years ago.
We're talking campaign catchphrases that catch on.
What will be this year's "swiftboating," "vision thing" or "giant sucking sound"? Which words or phrases uttered by the candidates or their cohorts will become part of the lexicon?
St. Olaf political science professor Henriët Hendriks thinks there are patterns to what sticks with us. "If there's a strong mental image that comes up whenever we hear it, it becomes powerful," said Hendriks, a presidential campaign expert. "If it's more accessible wording, it's more powerful, like 'flip-flopping.'
"Second, if it's not opposed, if it takes hold and there's no competing narrative, it sticks. That's why, with the 'binder full of women' narrative, the Romney campaign tried quickly to counter that. But if it gets repeated and repeated by the media, and now by social media, it sticks."
Some campaigns produce more than one phrase that endures. Two words from 2004 made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. The key, said Oxford's U.S. editor Katherine Martin, is "for a word to be used outside the circumscribed context of a single political campaign."
"'Swift-boating' was originally used only with reference to John Kerry, but now it is used as a general term to describe ad hominem attacks on a candidate. 'Flip-flop' is also used as a general figurative term for a dramatic change in policy."
Some phrases made their mark in two campaigns: "Read my lips: no new taxes" in 1988 (spoken by George H.W. Bush) and in 1992 (used against Bush after he raised taxes).
