Keeping Up Your Vocabulary: Globbering

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Globbering:

Pronounced: globe – erring

Etymology:

Globbering should not be confused with clobbering. The latter is usually done with a club or truncheon; the former with words. It is named for the practice of The Boston Globe which developed a method of clobbering a person it did not favor. (See POOF – person out of favor)

Definition:

It occurs when a newspaper with wide circulation finds a person it does not like. The target is a usually a public figure because that person’s ability to sue for libel is severely limited. The newspaper will write about her over and over in a negative light using rumor, innuendo and anonymous sources. Having scant evidence but using tenuous inferences it will tie her into bad people or things. As it is ruining the person’s reputation, it will start to make calls to officials pushing them to take action against her. These officials fearful of becoming a target themselves and anxious to ingratiate themselves with the newspaper will set about to satisfy the newspapers demands. While that is ongoing the newspaper will write negative editorials about her demanding openly that which it had been demanding surreptitiously that action be taken against her. Often back door communication between the newspaper and these officials will guide the response. The matter will then end up before the highest court or the local U.S. attorney who will respond to the newspapers call. The person globbered will have had her reputation so destroyed that she will become a pariah to most people without having had a chance to defend herself.

Globbering gives lie to the old poem: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”

Better still we should consider Shakespeare’s take on it when he explains through the mouth of Iago:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”

The act of globbering is the flinching of a person’s good name.

 

 

6 Comments

  1. William M. Connolly, not Mr. Lee

    Matt: this is another brilliant new word you’ve invented and it is “spot on” as you define it. I remember when Bob Quinn got globbered by the Globe. He was in a very close Governor’s race. The Globe hated this upstart middle class guy from Savin Hill in Dorchester. Never mind that he graduated from BC and Harvard Law, or Harvard and BC Law, top in his class. Never mind he was a former athlete: football, baseball; brilliant; happily married; good father, good husband, good neighbor; a great State Rep who became an honest solid Attorney General. Everyone knew him to be a man of the highest integrity. The Globe ran an editorial cartoon, right before the Tuesday Election Day. The cartoon depicted Bob Quinn with a bobby’s hat and bobby’s uniform on (the hat was tilted sideways like he was a little tipsy); with his police uniform on (the A.G. is the Commonwealth’s Top Cop) he is pushing a wheel barrel full of cash, down the front steps of the Golden Domed State House, and he is running away as he pushes, with a crazy smirk on his face, running to escape. Now we know what the cartoon meant to say: Quinn, the crooked A.G. will rob the State House blind, if he becomes governor. He’s depicted as a drunken crooked thieving Irishman, who’ll openly rip off you, the taxpayers and voters. The problem was there were no allegations ever that Bob Quinn stole a nickel from anyone, ever. The Globe Editors simply invented out of whole cloth this lie and plugged it into a cartoon on the eve of the Election. It gets worse. They compose a couple of editorials and have some lackeys write op-ed pieces, all of which for the very first time in the campaign, and for the first time in Bob Quinn’s Summa Cum Laude Life, accuses Quinn of thievery, implies he’s a thief, raises questions about whether he’d been getting away with larceny throughout his career or at least while he was the A.G. Top Cop. Quinn loses a close election. Wednesday the Boston Globe congratulates Quinn on a good campaign, and praises his as a man of unquestioned integrity. It’s like I said about Cullen, Murphy, O’Neill and especially that liar Lehr: they think they’re smarter than the rest of us; they think they can POOF anyone, Globber anyone, with impunity and immunity. Times v. Sullivan protects them, somewhat, true, but what they did and do to honest people like Bob Quinn, Ed King, Bill Bulger, our friends, our neighbors in Southie and Dorchester, our BC people, our Catholic friends and conservative Orthodox-Jew-GreekOrthodox–conservative Congregationalists, conservative/moderate Pro-Life people and anti-gay marriage people, and anti-affirmative action people is a SIN. When Chester Darling first started representing the Veterans in the Parade case, he was mocked by Gelzinis, Carr, and figuratively spit on by them andn their ilk, their cohorts, their colleagues in slander and detraction down at the GLOBE. Jacoby PLUS all the Globe’s liberal writers JUMPED ON THE BANDWAGON, joined in the gang attack, the gang rape of an innocent politician or lawyer; Chester Darling was labeled backwards, a hillbilly, a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, narrow minded, dumb, unenlightened; he was Globbered. Fortunately SCOTUS revified and validated Darling’s thinking and his brilliant defense of liberty and freedom of expression. It was the Globe who was on the side of the Neanderthals, the oppressors, the suppressors of speech. Finally think how cowardly Lehr, Cullen, O’Neill, Jacoby are: they love kicking people when they’re down: For example, Cullen hammered a local businessman who wanted to make improvements to a fine Comm. Ave. Home, with several units; Cullen said one tenant couple, two retired Harvard or MIT professors, could not afford to pay their fair share, their contracted share in accordance with the clear terms of the Condominium Agreement, of the improvements: new elevators, new stairs, new common areas, enhanced fire-safety features. So, Cullen basically spat upon and shad upon the character and person of the well-off business, attacked his wife and family, accused him of cruelty to the Elderly, and marrying into wealth, and being a greedy evil capitalist. HOW DARE HE WANT TO IMPROVE HIS PROPERTY AND MAKE IT SAFER FOR ALL TENANTS, ESPECIALLY THE ELDERLY ONES. Cullen assaulted the guy, painting him as demonic. Why? Because the coward wanted to puff up his own image as a caring reporter concerned about THE down-trodden, retired 80 year old college professors. Why? Because, like many sadists, he attacks to hurt people and make himself feel important. He also always praises some cops or firemen or Marines or Special Forces guys—he thinks this gets them on his side —-before he lashes out and lacerates some innocent, relatively powerless businessman, politician, clergy, sports guy or entertainer. A quick second example of Globbering: Jeff Jacoby kissed Billy Bulger’s ass his entire life, until Billy was about 80 years old, recovering from multiple bypass heart surgery, during which he’d suffered some severe unexpected consequences which made him very weak, and many people, like OUR cousins, close friends etc who attend Mass in Southie at St. Monica’s or St. Bridget’s or Gate of Heaven, expressed their concern about Billy Bulger’s health–luckily, a year or so later, he’s done well and apparently fully recovered. Anyway, when Bill Bulger was at his weakest and looked like he might be passing away soon, the coward Jeff Jacoby for the very first time wrote a lengthy op-ed piece urging that all “elite” politicians shun Billy Bulger; shun his family, too; shun his friends; shun him at social, religious, political occasions; shun him AT WAKES, AT FUNERALS, shun him all the time and everywhere and anywhere he (Billy) rears his dastardly evil head. And what was Billy’s great sin that Jacoby called for this Witch Hunt and the stocks and manacles and social ostracism and isolation? What did Billy do? Jacoby cited one thing: Billy Bulger refused to help Fred Wyshak and Donald Stern and Major Bob Foley find his brother, the fugitive, James Whitey Bulger; he refused to engage in trickeration to catch his brother; never mind that Whitey had not committed a murder since 1984 or 1986, and Jacoby was referring to State POlice and FBI hounding of Billy Bulger in 1999 or 2001, fifteen years at least since Whitey last threatened or allegedly murdered anyone: Jacoby said when the NAZIS COME KNOCKING ON YOUR DOOR AND ASK YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN LAYING A TRAP TO CATCH YOUR BROTHER WHO ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED A CRIME AGAINST THE STATE FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, YOU BETTER DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO TURN YOUR BROTHER – – – YOUR FLESH ADN BLOOD – – – YOUR BROTHER INTO THE AUTHORITIES, OR ELSE THE “ELITE” IN SOCIETY SHALL SHUN YOU!!!! That’s the coward Jacoby’s approach and he’s the best the Globe has to offer. You know, Matt, the NAZIs turned children against parents and brainwashed them to prefer THE STATE over family; the FEMINAZIS have turned pregnant women against their most precious love, the child they carry in the womb, and have made abortion into a SACRAMENT; Then Comes the NEO-NAZIS who think they’re “Good” and they want to turn brother against brother on the say-so of the STATE, of the FBI, of the STATE Cops, of Homeland Security. Jacoby cited the Uni-bomber who was actively still making bombs and likely to kill again soon; the unibomber’s brother voluntarily helped capture his presently dangerous brother of whom there wasn’t a scintilla of doubt that he’d killed innocents and would kill again. Billy Bulger? Billy was asked by the cops in about, let’s say, 2,000 A.D. to actively conspire with the STATE to lure his brother into some trap so he could be arrested. Billy likely thought: Why, is he a present danger to anyone? And Major Foley and Sterns and the FBI chiefs said, “Well, no! he hasn’t KILLED OR EVEN SERIOUSLY HARMED ANYONE IN 15 YEARS, BUT WE NAZIS WILL TELL THE GLOBE ADN THE GLOBE WILL PUBLISH YOUR NAME AND YOU WILL BE GLOBBERED AND GLOBBERIZED AND THEN WE, THE STATE NAZIS ALONG WITH OUR FRIEND THE NEO-NAZI JEFF JACOBY, WILL JOIN FORCES TO WHIP UP HATRED AGAINST YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, AND WE WILL BE UNREPENTANT BECAUSE OUR ANCESTORS SUFFERED IN THE HOLOCAUST AND IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT YOUR ANCESTORS SUFFERED IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION OR IN THE GREAT WARS OR IN THE GREAT HUNGER IN IRELAND WHERE ONE MILLION STARVED TO DEATH AND ONE MILLION FLED IRELAND AND ONE MILLION OTHERS GOT SICKLY FROM LACK OF FOOD, THAT’S 3 MILLION OUT OF AN 1850 IRISH POPULATION OF 8.5 MILLION. IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE JEFF JACOBY AND FRED WYSHAK AND BOB FOLEY AND THE GLOBE EDITORS HAVE AN EPISCOPALIAN-HARVARD EDUCATED GOD ON THEIR SIDE. SO, JEFF JACOBY, YOU CRUMB BUM COWARD, AFTER WE BRING BACK THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS, AND SHUNNINGS AND PUBLIC HUMILIATIONS AND STOCKS AND LOCKS AND BARRELL ROLLING FOLKS UNDER WATER AND THE INQUISITION AND THE POGRAMS AND THE CRUSADES AND THE INTERNECINE WARFARE OF TRIBE AGAINST TRIBE SINCE ANCIENT ANCIENT ANTIQUITY, WHAT’S NEXT. NUCLEAR WAR TO FORCE BROTHERS TO TURN ON BROTHERS, TO RAT ON BROTHERS, TO SELL OUT BROTHERS, TO SELL OUT FLESH AND BLOOD: AND FOR WHAT? SO THE GLOBE AND STATE GOVERNMENT AND THE FBI AND HOMELAND SECURITY CAN BECOME MORE POWERFUL, MORE INTRUSIVE, MORE FEARSOME, MORE INTIMIDATING? IS THAT OUR GOAL HERE, GLOBE WRITERS? A NEW WORLD ORDER WHERE —WHERE—WHERE JUST WHO ARE WE HERALDING IN AS OUR NEW KING WITH OUR NEW ETHICS? HEROD? CAESAR? MUSSOLINI? BEE-El-za-bub, the Globberer?

    • William:

      You may find my first installment in the Globe vs Marty Walsh series which I think will be out tomorrow afternoon will reflect some of the things you suggested in the first part of your comment.

  2. Spelling error – Globbering..

  3. Then, well and surely I have been the victim of Gobbering…

  4. Globbering: Exactly what they did to Tim Murray. Shameful besmirching of a damn good person and elected official. Shame on the Globe, the US Atty’s office and AG Coakley’s office for their (as it turns out) unfounded campaign to discredit him.

    • HL

      What’s was done to Murray is a good example of globbering especially since it was done by both of Boston’s newspapers. The repetition of rumor, the taking of a tenuous connections and making it into something much greater and more sinister as if there was a conspiracy, the throwing of others sins onto the back of another person just because of a friendship or acquaintanceship and suggesting, and other such things are difficult to fight back against. I’d like to think I can make a few people more alert to those tactics so that at least some will insist that no person be destroyed unless it is proven in court after due process that the person did something which justified the punishment. Thanks for reminding me of what happened to Murray.