Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Are Mormons weird?

So as many of you know, a Mormon, Mitt Romney, currently has the inside track for his party’s nomination for president of the United States. Some months ago there was a bit of a flare-up when some people close to Barack Obama, the incumbent president and his party’s presumptive nominee, called Mitt Romney “weird”. A number of people—including a lot of Mormons—objected to this characterization, saying that weird was being used as a code word for Mormon, and that calling Mitt Romney such things was merely a case of religious bigotry.

Folks? Mitt Romney has done things like taking his family on holiday with his dog strapped to the top of the car. Now, this sort of thing doesn’t really have much direct bearing on someone’s ability to act as president of a country, but it certainly is weird.

Really, Mormons, let’s not be quite that paranoid. It is quite possible for a Mormon to be weird without that weirdness being the result of being Mormon, after all.

4 comments:

DRad said...

Ok Mr Linguist I'm sure I'm opening myself up on this one but if we are "a peculiar people" doesn't that dump us automatically into weird? Just curious.

KRad said...

That was me not Dan - oops had the wrong account signed in - apologies.

Heather the Mama Duk said...

I thought weird as code for Mormon was hilarious. And likely accurate.

Though I think maybe Obama was referring to the fact that Romney's hair does not move - ever. That's definitely weird.

David B said...

@KRad: There’s a language change issue there—for 400-years-ago peculiar, read present-day special.

@Heather: You know, i never thought of the hair—but it all makes sense to me now.