It's no worse than research-ING on human embryos.

Couple points:

1) It is not at unusual for black parlance and phraseology to pass into the cultural mainstream. Jazz, gansta rap, are just a few of the examples. Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" tunefully made fun of exactly that.

2) I think the main point is that this cheap shot artistry has been astoundingly successful for the right wing. Throwing liberals or progressives on the defensive continually.

The obvious question is how to fight back? By engaging in the same name calling? Downside - your fighting on their terrain. Plus you pollute the whole political atmospere.

Or do you call the other side on it? Do you point it out? But your still engaging in tit-for-tat. And it's hard to frame, etc.

But what of course is absolutely astounding is the hypocrisy of so many of these attacks. Purge of Lieberman? When you see constant public purges on the right. Elitist - advancing a President who is completely the product of the WASP elite, etc.

So although the exact chronology might be a bit off in the piece it's basic premise is valid.

Steve Martin made a lot of jokes using the gerund back in the late 70's. I remember thinking he was using grammar to make jokes and everybody laughed.

"But actually liberals rarely talk this way. On the Web..."

He loses me here. Whether liberals don't talk a certain way can't be tested by counting the frequencies of specific words in web-published writings. His book's subtitle (which has received such a good response) is lifted (he says "was adapted") from a well-scripted political ad. Again, whether conservatives actually talk that way is beside the point.

Actually, I don't even really see what the point is.

When this whole -ing-thing came up I initially thought it was going to be about the mainstream media, specifically Fox news, and especially the likes of Shep Smith, who consistently speaks in sentence fragments, leaving out helping verbs, and letting his participles do all the work, thus turning television "journalism" into little more than a series of captions to video footage. For instance, a story on someone who drowned in a river would be reported like so: "A man drowning in a river in Arkansas. Neighbors attempting to help in the rescue, but to no avail." Has anyone else noticed this trend? Does it piss you off to all heck as well? This art(ifice) of speech makes no sense to me whatsoever. When spoken live, such fragments make it seem as if the news is happening so fast that the broadcaster simply has no time to formulate complete sentences, but if you think about it, it would actually save time to speak in full sentences, since these reports are most often about things which happened in the past. "A man drowned in a river in Arkansas. Neighbors attempted to help in the rescue etc." There are two fewer syllables in the latter locution.

Whatever.

You couldn't be more wrong about this, Kevin. Don't you recognize that this is a part of black culture precisely because they adopted the insults that were aimed at them by Southern whites? They adopted terms like "ni**er" for various reasons, one of which being a way to take the sting out of the insults. There is a huge history on black adoption of white insults.

At its heart, the use of "-ing" is essentially name-calling. And name-calling has been an almost exclusive tool of the right-wing for a long time. The only people who would use name-calling that are not right wing would be uneducated persons whose politics happen to swing left for one reason or another. Think about it: when is the last time you heard an educated person that was not a conservative pundit use the "-ing" construction to refer to someone.

You couldn't be more wrong about this, Kevin.

And you couldn't be more wrong that it's Kevin. Check the name on the post.

I don't know if Geoffrey talks to black people, but his point is still fundamentally valid. Conservatives on TV use the schoolyard taunt "-ing," and liberals don't.

The point you're making, that conservatives stole it from the kind of black people who we almost never see as pundits on TV, doesn't make the "-ing" conjunction a liberal thing. It just makes it yet another thing that "the man" stole from black people.

Fred Barnes is stealing Queen Latifah's schtick, and Paul Krugman isn't. When you're discussing politics, this means it's a "conservative" schtick and not a liberal one. It's beside the point that some people who are liberals use it in a non-political context.

Remember only Kevin gets the nice font!

Is it just me, or did anyone else see the whole gerund construction of the insult as not being the main point? I thought the main point was the simple insults themselves, not that you made them with a "ing".

Just curious....

Muggy, you are right, that "ing" stuff on the TV news drives me batty too. I suspect a TV news consultant told them that participles are happenin'. Yechhh.

These things work both ways. Liberals can use the -ing construction to poke fun at conservatives:

flag-waving
war-mongering
Bible-thumping
etc.

I know Kevin said in his initial post to keep it clean, but any quasicomprehensive list of contemporary object+present-participle epithets HAS to include c%$k-sucking. Especially given the way that conservo discourse genders and sexualizes "weak"/"girly-man" Democrats, the Roveian "polarization" issue of gay marriage, and the exodus of socially conservative men (including black males) from the Democratic Party.

Ah, but Peter - those are good things...

any quasicomprehensive list of contemporary object+present-participle epithets HAS to include c%$k-sucking. Especially given the way that conservo discourse genders and sexualizes "weak"/"girly-man" Democrats, the Roveian "polarization" issue of gay marriage, and the exodus of socially conservative men (including black males) from the Democratic Party

Dunno ... when that term is used as an insult it's very seldom meant in a literal sense. Much the same is true with respect to mother-f@@@ing - hardly anyone uses it literally.

Yikes! Didn't notice the different poster here. Sorry about the false accusation there, Kevin. Anyway, you couldn't be more wrong about this Zachary!

Peter:

True, liberals can use those terms, and on rare occasions have. But, honestly, how often do you hear them used? I never do. That is the point. There are such name-calling terms to describe anyone, but you mainly hearing them being used by those on the right.

Cannibalizing Republicans!

Excuuuuse me!

locolawyer, you seem to be under the impression that all of black vernacular has been formed through the adoption of white insults. I'm no linguist, but that theory seems...dumb.

You also claim that "name-calling has been an almost exclusive tool of the right-wing for a long time. The only people who would use name-calling that are not right wing would be uneducated persons." I'm no conservative, but this theory is so dumb as to beggar belief.

It also seems an insult to liberals. Politics isn't a genteel policy debate, it's a blood sport. And I'm not talking modern politics, I'm talking all politics, as it always has been and always will be. Liberals should be able to throw insults with the best of them.

Speaking of which, remember when Jon Stewart called Tucker Carlson a "dick" on Crossfire? That was awesome.

Remember when Al Franken wrote a book entitled "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot"? That was less awesome, but still kinda funny.

Am I the only one who thinks that all the posts at this blog written by anyone other than Kevin are totally idiotic? Why is Zachary Roth here? At least Washington Monthly warns us by giving the guests a less readable font. Next time I'll just skip it.

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Clueless:

Murray: Your man Christian is a cake boy!
Cher, Dionne: A what?
Murray: He's a disco-dancing, Oscar-Wilde-reading, Streisand-ticket-holding friend of Dorothy, know what I'm saying?

-- note that Murray is black.

muggy: the use of -ing verbs without forms of "to be", as you describe, is completely separate, but...Nunberg himself addresses that in a piece in his previous book, The Way We Talk Now.

Why is Zachary Roth here?

Thank God he is, and not Amy Sullivan lecturing us on liberals' religion deficit.

Politics isn't a genteel policy debate, it's a blood sport. And I'm not talking modern politics, I'm talking all politics, as it always has been and always will be. Liberals should be able to throw insults with the best of them.

You da man, Crabshack! We should all utter that mantra every morning.

This is pretty funny because I remember the first bad thing my Dad ever said to me about my politics was that he sure didn't mean to raise a nigger-loving-kennedy liberal.

Yeah, that nigger-loving (and nigger-lover)phrase used to be quite popular when I was growing up.

True, liberals can use those terms, and on rare occasions have. But, honestly, how often do you hear them used? I never do. That is the point. There are such name-calling terms to describe anyone, but you mainly hearing them being used by those on the right.True, liberals can use those terms, and on rare occasions have. But, honestly, how often do you hear them used?

I thought INGing meant putting all my millions to work in tax free bond funds