It turns out the word maverick came from an actual person named Maverick who didn’t brand his cattle. His family is still around and has included civil rights lawyers, accused communists, & a member emeritus of the San Antonio ACLU. That is, not people who are voting for John McCain, but they also object to him calling himself one.
Ms. Terrelitta Maverick, now 82, says, about John McCain: “He’s a Republican,†she said. “He’s branded.â€
Also see Rep. Maury Maverick of the same family, who coined the word “gobbledygook.” Quite appropriate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maury_Maverick
Looking up Maverick… $.10 computer time
Finding out about unbranded cattle…$5.000 bar bet won
Hearing the family not liking McCain….Priceless
Diane
I’m confused about how the term “maverick” became a superlative.
Mavericks were hated.
They would use the “unbranded cattle is cattle that belongs to me” line of thinking as an excuse to steal the cattle of other ranchers that they had not yet time to brand.
Totally the kind of person after which you’d want to model your whole political career and your campaign image.
If I were giving a speech and planned on using a ‘sound bite’ word, the first thing I would do is LOOK UP THE WORD and make sure I was using it correctly.
Obviously, Palin didn’t bother. Oh right — she didn’t really have time, did she?
If you haven’t seen this yet it’s good for a giggle, especially in light of this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/04/tina-fey-as-sarah-palin-i_n_131964.html
Diane Frank… FTW!