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Examples
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As had been true in the 1990s under the Clinton administration, the new administration was eager to kick a former superpower when it was down on its luck and just beginning to emerge from its era of "catastroika."
One Thousand Reasons 2008
bilby commented on the word catastroika
"As Stephen Cohen wrote in a pathbreaking piece in the Nation, 'The New American Cold War,' back in 2006, even as the Bush administration began to claim that the U.S. had an overriding national interest in scores of nations around the planet (including Iraq and Iran), there was 'a tacit... U.S. denial that Russia had any legitimate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin or contiguous former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia.' As had been true in the 1990s under the Clinton administration, the new administration was eager to kick a former superpower when it was down on its luck and just beginning to emerge from its era of catastroika."
- Tom Engelhardt, tomdispatch.com, 3 Sep 2008.
September 3, 2008
rolig commented on the word catastroika
Coinages like this are amusing but what I don't like about them is that they require that you know nothing about how words are put together. Ultimately, all they say to me is, "Look how clever I am. Don't you think I'm clever?"
September 3, 2008
bilby commented on the word catastroika
Yeah, I know what you mean. Reminds me of googleganger where the 'wrong' bit of doppelganger was taken, presumably for the sake of a better sound bite than doppelgoogle. Admittedly, in this case Engelhardt did have catastroika in inverted commas as if to distance himself from it. I didn't reproduce them as the blue effect of brackets seems enough to me. I'm not necessarily a fan of these formulations but I do keep an eye on how language is used and how far the boundaries get pushed.
September 3, 2008