Is there anyone in the Admin brave enough to speak up to the boss or is being a “yes” man just job security – PB/TK
Rick Wilson Says People Are Afraid of Trump Going “Rips–t Bonkers” on Them. What Does That Mean? – By Ben Zimmer / May 19 2017
Ah, the joys of live television. MSNBC unexpectedly aired a fine example of unexpurgated profanity when political strategist Rick Wilson appeared on “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell” Thursday night. O’Donnell asked Wilson about Republican members of Congress who are optimistically whispering about the possibility of Vice President Mike Pence assuming the presidency. Wilson said:
“Well, a lot of those guys right now, you know, are in that category where they’re still supporting Trump publicly because they feel like they have to. They’re afraid of the mean tweet. They’re afraid of Donald Trump going crazy, you know, ripshit bonkers on them”
MSNBC couldn’t have been too happy with Wilson’s colorful characterization, but “ripshit bonkers” is a perfect turn of phrase to describe Trump-style enraged craziness. And I was especially pleased to hear Wilson use ripshit, since I had been introduced to this wonderful word just a few days ago. It came up in a conversation with American Heritage Dictionaries executive editor Steve Kleinedler, who was amazed I had never heard it before. So of course, in accordance with the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, I’ve quickly encountered ripshit again — on national television, no less.
After talking about ripshit with Steve, I started wondering about its origins and usage. In Green’s Dictionary of Slang (GDoS), Jonathon Green glosses rip-shit as “afraid” or “angry,” though “angry” seems to be the more common meaning. Wiktionary defines it as “enraged or otherwise highly emotional,” and provides citations back to 1984, in Ken Hartnett’s novel A Saving Grace
Continue to slate.com article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/05/19/rick_wilson_said_on_msnbc_that_trump_might_go_ripshit_bonkers_on_people.html
