Sarah Palin has enough trouble “refudiating” the English language. Now she has a gender gaffe with the Spanish language. On Fox News Sunday, Palin said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has cojones.
Really? The literal translation of cojones is a male’s testicles. In American slang, a common usage is referring cojones to a male’s machoism meaning he has the guts to make a stand-up decision. Whether that definition applies to women, I rather doubt it, but to be generous to Mrs. Palin, the term does get bastardized in English translation.
“Jan Brewer has the cojones that our president does not have,” she said on Fox. “If our own president will not enforce our federal law, more power to Jan Brewer.”
Recently she butchered her own native tongue with this comment:
“Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.” –a Tweet by Sarah Palin, which she quickly removed after being ridiculed for inventing the word “refudiate,” July 18, 2010
It is not for me to repudiate Palin. I can live with the soundbites she is so clever at injecting in our public discourse. The “death panels” in health care, the description of independent, conservative hockey moms and “mama Grizzlies” all strike a chord. Even placing Democratic targets in a rifle’s crosshairs in a trigger-happy gun society.
But cojones in a woman? The giggling you hear comes from the Spanish-speaking females on the flip side of my extended family.
Cross posted on The Remmers Report
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Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.