Sunday, April 29, 2012

Vocab with T: Sharky

It was pretty easy to settle on sharky as this month's vocabulary lesson, if only because the current political landscape so easily lends itself to use of the word.  Sharky is just a re-organization of that old trope that "lawyers are sharks" and when you are a shark, you act sharky.  Just so we're clear, being clever alone is not being sharky.  But being a clever asshole, well, that makes you sharky.

Do you need some examples?

Newt Gingrich's every utterance is sharky.  Karl Rove's American Crossroads's produced adverts attacking Barack Obama for being too cool?  Sharky.  And we all have that one colleague whose every act is manipulative and self-serving….they are sharky.

It's useful to have a way to characterize these people that doesn't involve the volumes of profanity I usually use as reference point for the sharky among us.  This is a family blog after all.

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