Sarah Palin taught me a vocabulary word.

HANNITY: Senator Barack Obama yesterday was attacking Senator McCain for saying that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Do you believe that the fundamentals of our economy are strong?

PALIN: Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use. The fundamentals that he was having to explain afterwards, he means the work force, he means ingenuity of the American people. And of course, that is strong, that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack based on verbiage that John McCain used. Certainly, it is a mess, though.

(Thanks to The Huffington Post for this quote.)

Verbiage. Dumb old me, I didn't realize it could be pronounced with three syllables (Merriam Webster says 'ver-bee-age' and 'ver-bage' are both correct). I also didn't realize how negative a word it was until I looked it up for the pronunciation and spelling confirmations. Hmmm. Sarah's talking about her running mate, her potential boss and commander-in-chief's (God help us!) "profusion of words usually of little or obscure content." Do we give her too little credit for her insights?!

Speaking of a profusion of words of little or obscure content, the other night I listened to the debate (sans Bingo card, unfortunately), rather than watch it. I've been watching it online today (and forgot to use my Bingo card AGAIN!), and the difference is incredible. Body language adds a whole new dimension to the conversation. Biden has been called to task for appearing condescending - I was astonished to see Palin acting like that a number of times toward him! As my sister said to me, "she's a little too condescending for a relative newcomer."

You know, it's so easy to make fun of her, to celebrate the latest SNL skit, but the video clips I like are from various news shows, because so many of them are including SNL clips in their newscasts! CNN, Fox, MSNBC are all including Tina Fey's impersonations in the regular news!

The clip below gives Gwen Ifill's (and Queen Latifah's) reaction to the VP debate.

And just so all you grammarians can have fun, too, here are a couple of sites that address her rather, erm, unusual oratory style: Palin Grammar and Palin Poetry.