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Friday, August 5, 2005

Frothy Coincidence? Lube-Smeared Mix-Up?

Posted by on August 5 at 10:50 AM

Nichole, an alert Savage Love reader in U.S. Senator Rick Santorum’s home state (Pennsylvania), spotted a pair of interesting headlines on a single page of last Sunday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Santorum’s Everywhere” began a headline on the upper right hand corner of the page; “Frothy Dispute” read the headline on the lower left. (Thanks for sending it in, Nichole!)

newspaper.jpg

Since launching my wildly successful campaign to redefine Santoruminspired by a Savage Love reader, new definition created by a Savage Love reader, voted on by a Savage Love readersmainstream papers have shied away from covering this political and linguistic triumph. But headline writers seem to delight in working in references to the new definition of Santorum, “that frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.”

While there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of lower-case “s” santorum in the MSMeven after it was declared one of the “words of the year” by the American Dialect SocietyI’ve lost count of the number of times phrases like “Santorum Smears…” or “Santorum Spreads…” have been used in headlines. Whether this is one of those instances or a simple coincidence is an open question. “Whoever the editor down at the PPG is either totally hip to your column or completely oblivious,” wrote Nichole. Regardless, Santorum’s name can no longer appear anywhere near the words “frothy” or “mix” - or “smear,” as it did when Santorum blamed Boston’s liberalism for inspiring all those Catholic priests to rape kids - without making people go “hmmm…”

And anyone who doubts that lower-case “s” santorum isn’t a worldwide movement, here’s the santorum entry from the German version of Wikipedia.

And then there are subtle nods to Santorum’s new meaning, like this pic in the Washington Post of the Senator playing baseball…

Santorum At the Bat.jpg