NPR Used ‘Schlonged’ to Describe Geraldine Ferraro in 2011

Donald J. Trump is still coming under fire from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the media, including National Public Radio (NPR), for using the term “schlonged” to describe her defeat in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Trump insists that the term is not vulgar, and merely describes “beaten badly.”

Certainly that is the way NPR itself used the term in 2011, in a discussion with political reported Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post.

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan was discussing the recent passing of Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be nominated for Vice President. Apparently, Cilizza did not object to the term “schlonged,” nor did NPR’s Mara Liasson:

CONAN: And Chris Cillizza, that ticket went on to get schlonged(ph) at the polls, but that’s a historic moment.

Mr. CILLIZZA: Absolutely historic moment, Neal, but as you point out, lost 49 states. The only state that that ticket won, which was led by Walter Mondale, was his home state of Minnesota. I would say it was historic in another way, not just that Geraldine was the first woman to be on a major party ticket, but my father, my Italian father, would be – would not be happy if I did not mention she was the first Italian-American also to be on a major party ticket.

So groundbreaking in its way, but one fascinating tidbit: We still don’t have a woman president, and we had a female, obviously, nominee, with Hillary Clinton, and she lost the nomination.

The inestimable David Martosko of the Daily Mail has a roundup of other examples of the term’s occasional use in a non-vulgar context, including by several major media outlets. The term derives from a Yiddish word for “penis.”