esrosedotblog

TIMBRE

Today I was reading Glenn Greenwald in Salon and he referred to the candidates as (or as not) "presidential timbre".

I have heard this term all my life and have always assumed it meant wood!

The tall kind as it stands in forests.

Not a bad image in a way.

But I have been wrong.

The correct spelling is 'timbre' as in the resonance of a tuning fork.

And it comes from an article in Time Magazine in the Forties.

Presidential Timbre

I do not like to be found wrong but I sure don't like to continue being wrong.

Of course this misunderstanding is all in my head. If I verbalize the term, right or wrong, it sounds the same.

That's the English language for you.

I don't think that I have used the phrase "presidential timbre" out loud once in my life.

Well, maybe once. Perhaps twice.

But still. I might need it soon and I like knowing what it means when I say it.

I think that there is a verbal misfire when someone says "s/he is (or is not) presidential timbre".

You must say that "s/he has presidential timbre".

Now to the real question at hand.

Of the candidates, who has presidential timbre and who does not?

Obama has it I think. Unfortunately it is only in the rhetoric and not in the day to day interview talk.

Hillary does not really have it. But then that might be my inner misogynist talking.

Edwards is a mish mash. Too southern.

NO one on the other side has it.

Bush? Timbre? Hah!

I think what is meant here is a kind of gravitas that conveys over radio.

Perhaps the term is obsolete as we now see the candidates all too many times.

We do not merely listen.

What is required is a blind test but it is too late for that.

At the bottom, the whole thing may be malarkey. The standard held up in the Time article was FDR and for anyone who listened to the man on the radio as I did there is no other who has ever sounded so presidential.

There would be no winners here at all.

Labels: politics