London, Sept. 9 (Reuters): George W. Bush is mocked for strangling grammar. But he can hold his head up high in the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations published today.
The US President makes a respectable first appearance in one of the world?s most famous reference books with his notorious ?Axis of Evil? speech about Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Bush, long renowned for his malapropisms, has in the past offered such gems as misunderestimate, embetter and resignate.
In the latest instalment of Bushisms, he told a roomful of top Pentagon brass last month that his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the US. But Oxford dictionary editor Elizabeth Knowles works on very different criteria for new entrants in the revered tome. ?You look at the quotation, not at their linguistic dexterity,? she said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush?s closest ally in the war on Iraq, is given prominence for waxing lyrical in appropriately Shakespearean tones in the lead-up to the conflict: ?This is not the time to falter.?
Intriguingly the latest edition of the famous sayings book first published in 1941 highlights how history has a way of repeating itself when it comes to the memorable soundbite. Bill Clinton, watching the saga of the Florida chaos unfolding in the 2000 US Presidential election, said: ?The American people have spoken ? but it?s going to take a little time to determine what they said.?
That echoed the complaint by British Conservative statesman Lord Salisbury in 1877: ?One of the nuisances of the ballot is that when the oracle has spoken, you never know what it means.? ?We are constantly trying to pick up material that has become newly resonant,? Knowles said, citing a John Quincy Adams quote that struck a chord after the September 11 attacks on the US: ?Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she (America) goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.?
On a lighter note, draconian British quiz mistress Anne Robinson wins quote immortality for the way she curtly dismisses failed candidates in her show:?You are the weakest link ... Goodbye.?
Jonny Wilkinson, who won England the Rugby World Cup with a drop goal against Australia in the dying seconds of the final, wins a spot for a typical burst of English understatement:?It was probably the easiest attempt I had all day.?
But another sporting icon has yet to make a memorable remark. ?David Beckham is not in here yet,? said Knowles, reflecting on the dictionary absence of the England soccer captain constantly pilloried for his monosyllabic utterances.
