Absurdity
After changing AI to SI, Trump is also changing gerrymandering to gerryenglish because this is America not China.
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the word 'gerrymandering' will be phased out of all federal electoral documents, communications, and signage, effective immediately, on the grounds that the suffix '-mander' sounds, in the words of a White House press release, 'frankly Chinese.'
The replacement term, 'gerryenglish,' was developed over what officials described as 'several hours of focused thinking' by a four-person task force operating out of a conference room on the second floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
'When the President saw the word on a briefing document, he circled it and wrote CHINA? in the margin,' said Press Secretary Kayleigh-Ann Burgess, reading from prepared remarks. 'That was the beginning of the process. That was day one.'
The announcement comes three weeks after the administration formally rebranded Artificial Intelligence as 'Smart Intelligence,' or SI, citing concerns that the word 'artificial' implies inauthenticity. Officials say the gerryenglish initiative follows the same logic.
'Mander,' according to a seventeen-page white paper released alongside the announcement, 'has no basis in the American linguistic tradition.' The paper does not mention that the word derives from Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts governor and Founding Father who died in 1814 and was, by all available records, from Marblehead.
Elbridge Gerry's estate did not respond to a request for comment, as it is an estate.
The White House confirmed that Mr. Gerry's half of the word is being retained. 'Gerry is a great name,' Burgess said. 'Very strong. Very American. Ends in a Y.'
Critics were swift. Linguists, historians, and at least one retired middle school civics teacher named Dennis Plourde of Akron, Ohio, pointed out that the word 'gerrymander' was coined in 1812 after a salamander-shaped district Gerry approved, making it a compound of an American politician and an amphibian, neither of which has diplomatic ties to Beijing.
'The salamander is not Chinese,' said Dr. Patricia Wohl, a professor of political etymology at American University. 'The salamander is a salamander. It lives under rocks in Pennsylvania.'
The White House acknowledged the salamander issue but said it was 'under review,' a phrase that a separate official confirmed means 'we will rename salamander if this goes well.'
In the interim, the word 'gerrymander' has been removed from the Department of Justice website, the Federal Election Commission style guide, and a laminated poster in the break room of the House Judiciary Committee, which a staffer described as 'the most depressing thing I have seen in four years of depressing things.'
District maps themselves remain unchanged.
Congressman Brad Whitmore of Georgia, who represents a district shaped like a man trying to escape through a screen door, called the rebranding 'an important step toward electoral clarity.' He added that his constituents had 'raised real concerns about the foreignness of the existing terminology,' though he declined to name any of them.
'What matters,' Whitmore said, 'is that American people can look at their district and see an American word describing it. That is freedom. That is what we fought for.' He was then asked what shape his district is. 'It's a strong shape,' he said.
The administration also confirmed that going forward, the Office of Smart Intelligence will run a quarterly audit of federal terminology for syllables that 'test poorly with American ears,' a process officials say will be fully automated using Smart Intelligence.
When a reporter asked how Smart Intelligence would detect foreign-sounding syllables, Burgess said the system had been 'trained on a very large amount of correct American,' and then ended the briefing.
The salamander, reached for comment in a rotting log near Harrisburg, declined to take a position.
This is satire. The events and quotes are invented and none of it is real news.