-
Step 1
Many neologisms are created on blogsNaturally, read the blogs and keep an eye out for new blogger terminology. Cable television news channels have also coined many of the new phrases--or at least harolded them in to common usage. Many political slang terms can be deciphered with a little reasoning, such as "Reagon Democrat," "Compassionate Conservative" and "trustafarian." Like learning latin roots, you'll find that the more you keep up with politics, the more easily you will be able to unravel a word and build you political jargon vocabulary.
-
Step 2
Try a Political Slang DictionaryIf you'd like to take a crash course in political jargon, consider picking up a political slang dictionary. Yes, they exhist. Oxford recently worked with Mary Matalin and James Carville to create the dictionary pictured at left. These guides provide a socio-linguistic look at the past and current political landscape and can make for a fun way to brush up on your political history.
-
Step 3
Bookmark a few online political jargon guidesFinally, since political jargon is constantly evolving, fortunately there are some great web guides to help you decipher current terms. See the resources section below for links to a few of the best, and boost your political vocabulary from your computer.
Comments
LucyRN said
on 11/12/2008 political slang dictionary? that's pretty neat
RiteNow said
on 11/12/2008 Thanks for the information. I did not know that such a dictionary existed... 5*
jpwriter said
on 11/12/2008 A political slang dictionary, that's great. It is very hard to keep up. Last night I heard the term Independent Democrat. I don't know. Oh, politics...
Vanillatte said
on 11/12/2008 Excellent! Seems the political buzzwords change on an almost daily basis!
purrfect1969-2 said
on 11/12/2008 Great info. Thanks.