Haigledygook and Secretaryspeak

Alexander Haig is conducting a terrorist campaign of his own--against the English language. His war of words with the Kremlin has turned into a war on words, presumably much to the consternation of Russian translators. Herewith a lexicon of Haigisms:

Careful caution. A repetitious redundancy but preferable to careless caution. Similar to his "longstanding in time."

Caveat. An Al-verb, a victim of the general's verification program, to which resistance is verboten for even the most insolent little noun. As in: "I'll have to caveat my response, Senator."

Contexted. The past tense of Haig's verbicose veins. As in telling Senator John Glenn that his question cannot be answered "in the way you contexted it."

Epistemologicallywise. The only thing less clear than the meaning of this word is how many hyphens it should have.

Exacerbating restraint. A Pushmi-Pullyu, as in expressing the hope that the Soviets would do nothing "to exacerbate the kind of mutual restraint that both sides should pursue."

Menu. Used with careful caution as in:

"In each instance the menu--and I use that term guardedly--of assets available to the West will vary."

Nuanced and nuance-al. As when the secretary of solecism talks of "nuanced and fundamentally sharp departures" and "nuance-al differences."

Posthostage-return attitude. An imploded word cluster that may be the result of reading too many NATO command manuals in German.

Saddle myself with a statistical fence.

A techno-cowboy's metaphor that borders on the kinky.

The very act of definitizing an answer.

A punishable act in most English-speaking countries.

This is not an experience I haven't been through before. Definitely not a non-Haigism.

Out of context these phrases make no sense; in context they make even less sense. Maybe, just maybe, the Haigledygook is deliberate. As the Secretary said at his press conference when asked to clarify a statement: "That was consciously ambiguous in the sense that any terrorist government or terrorist movement that is contemplating such actions I think knows clearly what we are speaking of." Well, perhaps they do.

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