disingenuous » disingenuine

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • “… and those who say that while he [Bob Dole] may need to develop a few oratorical skills — like building an argument rather than stating the bottom line — he would come across as disingenuine if he suddenly adopted a high-blown rhetorical style, which he probably would refuse to do anyway.” (link)
  • Many of the veal industry lobbyists flew to Sacramento in California to testify against our State legislation, which, by the way, makes it a little disingenuine when they talk about there is plenty of State legislation that would outlaw this cruelty, when, at the same time, they are fighting these very efforts on the State level. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Neal Whitman, Garson O'Toole (ADS-L postings 9 and 11 April 2011)

O’Toole on the two examples above: (1) In 1996 a New York Times writer used “disingenuine” and the editor did not block it. Cite: 1996 March 10, New York Times, POLITICS: BOB DOLE; Political Mechanic Strives for Big Picture by Katharine Q. Seelye, Page 1.18, New York. (ProQuest); (2) On June 6, 1989 a Congressional Subcommittee Hearing was held concerning the “Veal Calf Protection Act”. One of the participants was Bradley Miller, Executive Director, Humane Farming Association, and he used the term “disingenuine”.

Whitman had a cite from a friend’s Facebook update and gave links to the Urban Dictionary, Verbotomy (”the create-a-word game”), and Wordnik. A few occurrences are deliberate inventions, but many of the others appear to be spontaneous.

The eggcorn has the flavor of a portmanteau of disingenuous and genuine.

| link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2011/04/11 |

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