garbage talk

Today, I saw a clip of Sarah Palin defending John McCain's statement about the fundamentals of the economy being strong by saying, "Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use..." She didn't say "verbiage," which she obviously meant, but "verbage." She said the word twice ("...that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used.").

Oftentimes in my writing, I come across a word I want to use that I don't know the full meaning of, or am thinking of another word that sounds similar to the word I come up with in the moment. For example, when I was editor of my high school newspaper, I got into trouble for writing that a fairly popular girl was "homely," when I really meant "homey." I wasn't a popular person before that faux pas, but that certainly didn't help my standing at Robert E. Lee. I wasn't out to get this person; she was actually very friendly to me. I liked her a lot. She understood the mistake when I apologized to her, but others didn't, particularly the jocks, who were always looking for a way to put me in my place at the time, or so it seemed (and that was a very dark place indeed).

In my defense, I was called out by one of the other newspaper writers for using the word "suffice" -- in a different article -- which was a word he didn't know how to pronounce, much less how to use in a sentence.

I have gotten in the habit of looking up words (usually; occasionally S catches one) when writing, as well as when I'm reading, which is often with some writers. (Admittedly, I ain't the most intellectual person in the world.) I still struggle for words when I'm speaking sometimes. S has commented that my vocabulary is the weakest part of my abilities -- though he would never put it in such a harsh way.

So, when I heard Sarah Palin use the word "verbage," twice, I paused, thought to myself, "That doesn't sound right," and looked up the two words. Dictionary.com defines them thusly:

verbiage

1.	overabundance or superfluity of words, as in writing or speech; wordiness; verbosity.

2.	manner or style of expressing something in words; wording: a manual of official verbiage.

verbage
A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of verbiage that assimilates it to the word "garbage".

Regardless of all the other evidence piling up against the election of John McCain and Sarah Palin, this distresses me somewhat most of all. I would really prefer my potential president be smarter than I see myself, at least in matters of economics, foreign policy and vocabulary.

One thing is certain: I spend way too much time reading political blogs when I would/could/should otherwise be working, to pay bills or creatively.