Stevieslaw: Linguist Uncovers “roots” of G.O.P.
Most Americans recognize the abbreviation, G.O.P., as standing for Grand Old Party—The Republican Party, yet Mary Oliver, a linguistics professor at Yale University has been linking this type of abbreviation to ancient language patterns for nearly 20 years. Her latest finding, to be published next month in “Linguistica” is that G.O.P. was intended by the ancient Phoenicians to signify “barefoot and pregnant.” Dr. Oliver noted that the verb form preceding this phrase is not entirely clear but most likely had the sense or meaning of “keeping or maintaining them.”
Carl Mistgony, spokesperson for the G.O.P., took time out from work on his top legislative priority, that of defunding Planned Parenthood—a group that one in five American women will visit in her lifetime, to discuss Oliver’s study.
“This is just one more example of the liberal media trying to paint the Republican Party with the label—war on women,” he said, “And that simply isn’t so” “The Republicans are waging a war against the laws that permit women free and equal rights as citizens of the nation and, of course, against their rights to all sorts of health care, but that is not the same as a war on woman. Anyone who can not appreciate this distinction must be suffering from the sort of hysteria that, you know, women are prone to.”
In a related story, Republican presidential hopefuls, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, attributed the delay in defunding and punishing Planned Parenthood to the technicality—“that they have done nothing wrong.” Both candidates have promised to defund linguistic research “forever and a day” on the day they take office.