from SLATE: Poll: Most Don't Know What "GOP" Stands For In survey, 35 percent guess "Government of the People." By Will Oremus | Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 5:25 PM ET
Do you know what GOP stands for? It’s not a trick question, though apparently it is a tricky question for the majority of Americans. In a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released Sunday, just 45 percent correctly answered a multiple-choice question about the meaning of the widely used acronym for the Republican Party. (For the record, it’s "Grand Old Party.") More than a third guessed "Government of the People," while a few jokesters (one hopes) opted for "Grumpy Old People," "God’s Own Party," or "Gauntlet of Power." Fewer than one in 10 had the modesty to select "Don’t know." [I thought that it was "Gross Orange People," after John Boehner.] Members of the GOP were marginally more likely to know what it means, with 51 percent of Republicans getting the right answer. Just 38 percent of Dems—er, Democrats—got it, though that may be partly because 9 percent of them opted for "Grumpy Old People." Whether the poll proves that Americans are idiots or that the media and political elite are out of touch probably depends on whether you knew the answer. Few headline writers can resist using the three-letter acronym as shorthand for Republicans, though the Wall Street Journal is a prominent exception: It stopped using GOP in 2002 for this very reason. (The New York Times’ William Safire weighed in with a column about the decision shortly thereafter.) For its part, the Republican National Committee houses its official website at www.GOP.com. ... -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
