«C'était une attaque injuste contre le verbiage que le sénateur McCain a choisi d'utiliser», a déclaré Sarah Palin dans le premier volet de l'entrevue qu'elle a accordée à l'animateur de Fox News Sean Hannity. La gouverneure d'Alaska a défendu ainsi la déclaration du candidat républicain à la présidence selon laquelle «les éléments fondamentaux de notre économie sont solides».
Le mot verbiage a le même sens en anglais qu'en français. Je citerai donc mon Petit Robert pour faire comprendre que la colistière de McCain aurait elle-même intérêt à mieux choisir ses mots. Verbiage : Abondance de paroles, de mots vides de sens ou qui disent peu de chose.
Le premier volet de l'entrevue de Palin à Hannity sera diffusé ce soir à compter de 21 h.
P.S. : La déclaration de Sarah Palin me fait penser à un passage du portrait que lui consacre l'hebdomadaire The New Yorker dans son numéro courant. Il y est question de... verbiage. Je cite l'extrait dans le texte :
Palin, who studied journalism in college and worked for a time as a sportscaster, has an informal manner of speech, simultaneously chatty and urgent, and she reinforces her words with winks and nods and wrinklings of her nose that seem meant to telegraph intimacy and ease. Speaking recently at her former church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, she said, "It was so cool growing up in this church and getting saved here, getting baptized by Pastor Riley in Little Beaver Lake Camp, freezing-cold summer days that we had at camp-my whole family getting baptized when we were little." She sounded the same when we met, high-spirited, irrepressible, and not in the least self-conscious. On the contrary, she is supremely self-confident, in the way of someone who believes that there is nothing she can't talk her way into, or out of, or around or through. There was never a hesitation before speaking, or between phrases, no time for thought or reflection. The words kept coming-engaging, lulling, distracting-a commanding flow, but without weight. Yet, for all the cozy colloquialism, she cannot be called relaxed. She's on-full on.