Refudiate

Refudiate (pronounced ri-fyoo-dee-yet)

To reject as untrue or refuse to acknowledge (non-standard).

Late 1800s: The construct was ref(ute) + (rep)udiate.  Refudiate (the third-person singular simple present is refudiates, the present participle refudiating & the simple past and past participle is refudiated) is a verb (used with object).  It is regarded by most as a non-standard form. Refute was from the Latin refūtō (refute, repudiate), the construct being re- + futo (to beat).  In its original Roman form it meant either (1) to prove something to be false or incorrect or (2) to claim that something is false or incorrect.  However, in English, many authorities assert that only the first meaning applies and that something can be thought refuted only if whatever matter is being discussed is absolutely proved false; it is not enough merely to assert a refutation, a successful refutation is the quality of the assertion.  Refute is often confused with rebut; a rebuttal, in formal debate terms, is a counter-refutation, and it also has a specific legal sense, though like refutation, the word has taken on the informal and disputed meaning of denial.  Politicians and others are much given to saying they refute things by which they really mean “deny” but the practice seems here to stay.  Repudiate was from the Latin repudiātus, from repudiō (I cast off, reject), from repudium (divorce).  It means either (1) to reject the truth or validity of; to deny or (2), to refuse to have anything to do with; to disown.  It also has a (now less common) technical meaning in the jargon of commerce “to refuse to pay or honor (a debt)”.

The re- prefix was from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.

There is in English a school of thought which acknowledges refudiate as a genuine word, the argument being that many words have been created thus and an infrequency of use does not mean a word is not a correct construction, just that it may be considered rare, obsolete or extinct.  Refudiate of course is no pure-bred descendent from the classical languages of antiquity but apparently an inadvertently created blend of refute and repudiate, probably of nineteenth century origin.  Had it been a deliberate coinage to fill some gap in the lexicon, the guardians of English may have been more welcoming but in merging two words which both have disputed meanings, refudiate added nothing but another layer of potential misunderstanding.

Refudiate is often associated with Sarah Palin (b 1964; governor of Alaska 2006-2009 & 2008 Republican US vice presidential nominee) and she was apparently the most recent to use the word but her lapsus linguae (slips of the tongue) were actually quite rare and one suspects criticism of her was excessive given it was after a word with a history stretching back over a century and it’s been done before.  Warren Harding (1865-1921; US President 1921-1923), during the 1920 presidential campaign, used “normalcy” instead of “normality”.  The section of the speech with the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative…

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

… so in saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious.  The prospects for refudiate don’t seem as hopeful but who knows?  It may catch on in the Republican Party as a statement of anti-elitist inverted linguistic snobbery.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Politicians often mangle the language and George W Bush (b 1946; US president 2001-2009) was so prolific he attracted those who created lists of “bushisms” although the actual coining of words was rare.  He started as he probably didn’t intend to go on, on election night 2000 inventing “misunderestimated” but it seems “ridiculoustic” and “misunfortunistically” were apocryphal.  Most of the Bushisms were either malapropisms or just tangled syntax but one must be sympathetic.  Unlike those who sit at keyboards, able to correct every mistake and polish every sentence, those who speak to live audience, do so sometimes without notes so errors are inevitable.  George W Bush certainly seems to have made more mistakes with the English language than most (including a great many non-native speakers) but extemporaneous speech is a harder art than the most accomplished can make it appear.

Even when done correctly, the myth of mistake can arise.  Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner) was a speech delivered in West Berlin on 26 June 1963 by John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), one of the most famous of the high Cold War.  The words spoken by Kennedy were:

“Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was 'Civis Romanus sum' (I am a Roman citizen).  Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner'."

Plate of Pfannkucken.

Years later, because of some dialogue in Len Deighton's (b 1929) 1983 spy novel Berlin Game, the myth began that Kennedy’s words were understood by his audience as “I am a jam-filled donut”, based on the fact that in Germany, a “Berliner” is a jam (jelly) filled donut.  However, it wasn’t then a use of the word at all common in Berlin; to Berliners, the sweet treat is a Pfannkucken.  The story however caught on and went viral in a pre-internet sort of way, the imprimatur of authenticity granted by sources as authoritative as Newsweek, the New York Times and Alastair Cooke’s (1908-2004) (Letter from America (1946-2004).