Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Gubernatorial
Welcome to the season of changing leaves and changing political candidates! Unless you have been under a rock for the past several months, you know election takes place this year on Tuesday, Nov. 8, at which time all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be voted upon. Members of the House serve two-year terms and are considered for re-election every even year. U.S senators serve six-year terms, so that Senate elections are staggered over even years, leaving about a third of the Senate up for reelection during any one election. In addition to these offices, many state and local elections are taking place including state races for governor.
The U.S. has presidential, congressional, and legislative contests, but refers to the governor’s race as “gubernatorial.” The word comes from “gubernator,” the root word of governor, and stems from the Latin “gubernare,” meaning to lead or govern. The word gubernatorial has come under criticism by everyone from editors at The New York Times and Boston Globe in modern times, to the writer Ambrose Bierce in the mid 1800s. Bierce was a journalist, short story writer and poet who called the word “needless and bombastic.” There is not much love for the term, which has also been described as “stilted, pedantic, uncouth, clumsy, and a verbal pomposity.” The Times’ stylebook advises against using the term and prefers “candidate for governor” or “one who is running for governor,” considering “gubernatorial” awkward and inelegant.
I disagree. Gubernatorial is more elegant than governatorial or whatever one word adjective can replace the awkward phrase of “one who is running for governor.” Gubernator is also a valid Scrabble word and possibly more couth than much of the current political rhetoric. Not to mention the awesome fact that when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, he was in fact “The Gubernator.” His second term re-election campaign missed a golden opportunity if they did not use his famous catchphrase from “Terminator” – “I’ll be back.”
