Adding Words

I think that other than when talking about new technology (for which no word) exists, the English language can do without any wholesale addition of new words, especially the conversion of nouns to verbs (“verbing”) and using industry-specific terminology (e.g. cops “surveilling” a suspect, don’t even get me started on lawyers), and so on.

Yes, I am fully aware that one of English’s greatest strengths is its ability to borrow, purloin or outright steal words from other languages, but that’s not the point of this discussion.

Two new words have come to my notice, both have to do with political elimination of either rivals or embarrassments, and I love them.

The first (and most obvious) word is the new noun/verb to “Epstein” someone, i.e. to kill or have someone killed in such a manner as to make it appear like suicide, even though it’s manifestly impossible for that to have happened without some kind of conspiracy.  Other than the eponymous source, one could easily apply the term to the erstwhile Clinton associate Vince Foster, Republican operative Pete Smith or reporter Chris Sign.  (That all the above were involved with the Clintons is purely coincidental [eyecross]. )

The second new word is the verbing of the word “pillow”, i.e. to murder someone more discreetly than by the usual shooting or stabbing, for example.  The Z-Man provides an example in his fine analysis of the two (Biden vs. Clinton) wings in the Democrat Party, which concludes thus:

The Biden people are not without their options. The one important card they have is that Harris is a weird blend of stupidity and offensiveness. She had all the resources one could want in the primary and managed to drive her own popularity down to zero by simply being herself. Having a dementia patient in the White House is manageable but a bitter ingrate with a chip on her shoulder is a problem. Putting Angry DMV Lady in the Oval Office could turn out to be a bigger disaster than Afghanistan.
Of course, the other option is to find a way to remove Harris first and replace her with someone the party can trust. Then they can pillow Biden before the midterm and run the sympathy script they have ready.

That pillowing is likewise related to the Clintons is purely coincidental.  Of course.