Repurposing ‘Caucus’
Imagine a gentler expletive. There’s a word in politics, the word ‘caucus,’ that, because of the way it sounds when you say it, can be repurposed to become the “next, best cuss word.” I’ve been writing about ‘caucus’ in a Colorado online magazine.
In dictionaries, ‘caucus’ is a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or a movement. Both major political parties, here in America, have their caucuses, the Republican caucus and the Democratic caucus.
But the word could take on another meaning, with an adjective like flaming preceding it. Or with other words preceding it. Maybe What a caucus! Or Such a caucus! Or, combining words…What a flaming caucus!!
Sounds like an expletive, don’t you think? One that’s not nearly as harsh or revolting as the expletives you see all muffled, in print, with symbols substituting for certain letters. So the words, in print, become assh~le and di#khead. That’s no fun! You pretty much know what they mean, but writers and editors have to jump through hoops, anyway, to disguise them.
With ‘caucus’ you don’t have to mess with symbols.
Repurposing ‘caucus’ is a mission I’m on. I even have a slogan: FED UP WITH SYMBOLS? GO ‘CAUCUS!’
And here’s an excerpt from something else I wrote — about the psychology of shaping opinion — with a little ‘caucus’ in the column:
That’s some of the psychology behind shaping opinion — reinforcing impressions and messaging…
Anyhow, that new cuss word I had in mind, recently… the political word ‘caucus,’ with an adjective, like ‘flaming,’ preceding it… ‘flaming caucus’… I so wanted to use that expletive, more than once, here in the Daily Post, to reinforce impressions of a proposed, new caucus for the House of Representatives, geared to “Anglo-Saxon traditions”. Such a caucus was headline news when Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, apparently, were about to bring it to the fore, a few days ago.
And then, when there was much consternation, the two reps tried pulling back, but the Anglo-Saxon caucus was too far out of the bag, so to speak, and so, I inserted ‘flaming Anglo-Saxon caucus’ in a second column, here in the Daily Post.
