Roots
The White House and its English
Deepti

The White House was initially described as ‘The Palace’. People started calling it ‘The White House’ around 1810, but it got its name even before it was painted white. Since 1800, it had been grey. It was only much later; after the British had tried to destroy ‘The White House’ that it was painted white in order to cover the smoke stains. The first record of it being called the White House dates back to 1810. The name became official in 1901 when Theodore Roosevelt began printing it on his stationery. The following are some more neologisms from the White House.

The intense anger felt by activists within the US Democratic party, particularly regarding the results of the 2000 presidential election, was termed ‘blue hot’. To understand this coinage, a peep into the past is necessary. A map of the US election results of 2000 displayed America divided into two regions: one, the south and the heartland which voted for the Republican nominee George W. Bush and, two, the west coast and the industrial regions in the north and northeast which voted for the Democratic candidate Al Gore. Since Republican states are traditionally shown in red and Democratic states are shown in blue, the media soon began talking of red states versus blue states. The label ‘blue’ shifted to the anger of the democrats in reaction to the recount in Florida.

‘Frontrunneritis’ refers to the increased scrutiny to which the early front-runner during or before an election or party leadership race is subjected. A ‘push poll’ is a series of calls, presented to look like a public-opinion poll, in which people who support a particular candidate offer negative information about a rival candidate. The negative campaigning that damages both the targeted opponent and the politician who initiated the campaign is aptly termed ‘murder suicide’.

The fact that the Watergate scandal remains a part of public memory is proved by the neologism ‘plant gating’ that refers to greeting and shaking hands with workers at the main gate of a manufacturing plant or warehouse, especially by a politician during an election.