President Obama today denied claims by Republican challenger Mitt Romney that he plans to eliminate verbs from American English.
Mr. Romney challenged the president in a speech to Republican backers, saying “Democrat Barack Obama wants to take away your verbs, and I say, don’t stand for it. The American people don’t want more of these tired, big government intrusions. Let us keep our powerful and active language
Told of Mr. Romney’s remarks, Mr. Obama responded: “We’ve seen four years of progress, and we’ve got more work to do. Mr. Romney’s claims don’t add up. I am in favor of verbs, and I use them just like the next guy. I even brew up my own verbs over in the White House. Mr. Romney’s the one who’s got a plan to ruin America. If you scrutinize the Republican platform as carefully as I have, you’ll see that it clearly implies the desire to concentrate nouns among the top 1% of American noun users. Now that’s a change that you and I don’t need.“
Neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Obama would comment on the suggestion that a third party might challenge the two established parties on a platform of introducing new prepositions into American English. Some observers had expected that such a third party candidate might organically emerge from the “To Occupy Wall Street” prepositional movement, but none have so far.