# I have forgotten the word for the person who speaks for a celeb.  Help.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-forgotten-the-word-for-the-person-who-speaks-for-a-celeb-help/645646>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 31, 2012, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-forgotten-the-word-for-the-person-who-speaks-for-a-celeb-help/645646 "2012-12-31T07:29:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-forgotten-the-word-for-the-person-who-speaks-for-a-celeb-help/645646/21 "2013-01-01T05:54:37Z")

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Co-dependent father and/or mother.

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**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-forgotten-the-word-for-the-person-who-speaks-for-a-celeb-help/645646/22 "2013-01-01T06:26:00Z")

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When did _paid liar_ fall out of use?

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**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-forgotten-the-word-for-the-person-who-speaks-for-a-celeb-help/645646/23 "2013-01-01T11:21:43Z")

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**Long Lost Vocabulary Meanings Dept., Item #1,034** :

The astute reader pursuing issues of governance during the furst half of the 20th century may find him/herself puzzled by a long-in-desuetude use of _ **publicist** _. In those halcyon days, when politicians, entertainment celebrities, and drugged-out monomaniacs constituted three distinct segments of the population with only minimal overlap, a _publicist_ was not a euphemism for “PR flack”, but rather “writer in the public interest,” as distinguished from a partisan polemicist or a political gossip. Walter Lippmann is given as the classic example pf a publicist with the inevitability of an Eohippus-sized fox terrier.

The Al Gore of _An Inconvenient Truth_ might be a good modern example of this antiquated usage of the term _publicist_, as might some non-partisan members of the blogosphere.

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