Populist Conservative Usage

Geoffrey Nunberg, the Stanford linguist, notes a deviation from generally agreed usage in some conservatives' use of the word "elite" to refer to an individual. I do think there may be a bit of pandering to illiterates in some of his examples, or at least a deliberately lowbrow strategy at work, perhaps not unlike the one that had George Bush Senior call the dictator of Iraq "Sadim."

Dem Elites Tink Dey Know Evrythin.