British MEP Daniel Hannan: Say, I Like The Cut Of Sarah Palin’s Shakespearean Jib

By Gary P Jackson

Remember when the left got all wee-wee’ed up because Sarah Palin coined the new word "refudiate"? Even better: Remember when they went deliciously insane because she talked about English being a "living language" and mentioned the Bard of Avon, William Shakespear?

Yeah, progressives are generally useless, but their value as comic relief almost makes them almost tolerable. Almost.

In a piece we wrote, Come To Think Of It ... Sarah Palin IS Kind of Shakespearean, we talked about David Hirschman over at Big Think, and his musings on whether Sarah’s "refudiate" would have the staying power of Shakespear’s many words like "champion."

Now it seems that Daniel Hannan, the British Conservative superstar, Member of the European Parliament, and self proclaimed Shakespearean obsessive, offers his considerable opinion in today’s UK Telegraph:

Sarah Palin, never misunderestimate Shakespeare

I am thoroughly taken with Sarah Palin’s neologism. People often incorrectly use the word "refute" to mean something like "deny" or "reject", only stronger. We could do with a new word to fill this gap and, since both "refute" and "repudiate" are already occupied with their actual meanings, neither can be pressed into service. "Refudiate" occupies the space perfectly, and deserves to become part of every politician’s vocabulary.

The handsome Alaskan politician is quite right to say that Shakespeare came up with countless new-fangled words – including "countless" and "new-fangled". Among his coinages, as far as we can tell, are accommodation, assassinate, denote, dislocate, equivocal, eventful, hobnob, inauspicious, lacklustre, laughable, perplex, raw-boned, submerge, time-honoured, unmitigated and zany.

But minting words was just one, and not the greatest, of Shakespeare’s gifts. I know many readers find my obsession with our national poet trying. So, instead of hymning his genius yet again, let me offer you this famous passage from one of Bernard Levin’s columns.

Read more here.

Funny, while the progressives continually be-clown themselves attacking Sarah Palin, her stature as a true renaissance woman only rises.