Bushism

In American English, a Bushism is a word, phrase, or other grammatical configuration unique to the style of President George W. Bush while speaking publicly and usually extemporaneously. While any public figure speaking in so many venues over time is prone to a few unflattering errors, Bush's regular use of unusual grammatical constructions has some common characteristics that have given him a hallmark style:

Related Topics:
American English - Word - Phrase - George W. Bush

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• Adding agentive endings to words not usually accustomed to such treatment, such as suiciders, game changer, and truth teller
• Splicing words together in unusual combinations, such as misunderestimated and musta could've
• Odd sentence agreement, such as "We had a chance to visit with Teresa Nelson who's a parent, and a mom or a dad."
• Innovative use of double negatives, as in "We've not got no better friend and ally than South Korea."

Quotes from Bush's speeches that create an impression of poor fluency are often called Bushisms. Many quotes, sometimes taken out of context, are used by opponents to imply that Bush has significant misconceptions about geography, history, political processes, and the world in general. There is no easy way to tell how many of the quotes reflect Bush's actual knowledge and opinions and how many are merely results of verbal mishaps, but that has not stopped some of Bush's critics from using the unusually large number of embarrassing mistakes in efforts to discredit him.

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