From Orange Edge

I like words. I use them to express my thoughts. And, sometimes, my feelings.

What I’ve got here are two important words inspired by the lamentable state of world affairs. Econopocalypse, and Palin.

Econopocalypse: the ongoing immolation of the global financial system (if you didn’t guess). I first discovered this on Boing Boing and now I’m going to use it like it’s my own. This word gets bonus points for needing a couple test runs to get the pronunciation right. Try it.

Palin: has three different definitions on Urban Dictionary. Basically it means, someone completely unqualified for a job, as in “HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.” Or, even better, “an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.” As in, “John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he’s a Palin who can’t do the job.

The first term is useful in the short term, because it can immediately sum up the state of the financial crisis in a fun portmanteau kind of way. The second is very very important, because a search for “Palin 2012” turns up 6 million results on Google.
However, if her name becomes common vernacular for describing any incompetent person with too much power (in contrast to just describing one particular incompetent person invested with too much power), and/or an idiot applicant for a job well beyond their capabilities (see bracketed clause preceding) well, then I think that original Alaskan incompetent is going to find a presidential bid in 2012 a whole lot harder to mount.

That’s the power of words.