Ok, so it seems to be the rage that the name Santorum supposedly has an obscene meaning. I posted this in GQ because I am simply looking for factual answers.
Is it true or just urban legend?
If it is true, is that the only thing that his name means? Why would someone adopt that as a surname?
Are the Greeks (I think he’s Greek) in on the joke? Would they just laugh their asses off every time they saw his name?
What would be an equivalent English “ha ha” type of name? Would it be something mild like Joe Glasscock where it would take a Beavis and Butthead type to make a joke or would it be obvious, say like, Bill Fuckmyass, where there is just no other possible thing to do but scratch your head?
The other meaning is/was a deliberate attack on the congressman’s name. Because of his strong anti gay rights activism a calculated campaign of mostly google-bombing was launched by some pro gay rights activists and sympathetic nerds to establish the alternate meaning online.
Wow. That seems pretty circular. It would be like if I said that the name Obama means “Kenyan dick sucker” and then every time someone mentions his name in a thread, I post a snicker about it.
I guess my question has been answered, but I thought that surely with all of the posts relating to it, there was some REAL meaning behind it instead of just a purposefully created insult.
Part of what makes the joke amusing is that Santorum’s target political audience (i.e., old fundamentalists) is blissfully unaware of the joke, despite it being the top Google hit for Santorum and probably the only thing much of the country knows about the man.
Well, no, your question hasn’t been answered. Check out this Wiki article about it. Savage created a campaign that would take advantage of the way Google works, so that googling “Santorium” would bring up this definition first. The idea being that–for people unfamiliar with him and googling–his name would pull up this definition first, in a coup of triumphant (if disgusting) irony.
Yeah, it’s a nasty, dirty thing–I don’t mean anal froth, I mean what Dan Savage did. But people go along with it because Mr Santorum is such a tempting target. Santorum’s dumb, corrupt, and self-righteous, but Dan Savage is pretty much in the wrong. If it were a more respectable person people might object more, and if it were a major Democrat getting this treatment you’d see different responses from given individuals. There’s a ludicrous amount of partisanship in this country today.
Yep, but then a more respectable person wouldn’t have been the target of Mr. Savage in the first place. That is exactly why he was a target. And here we go again with the false equivalency between R’s and D’s. Republicans run on the politics of divisiveness and I see this as one simply being hoisted on his own petard.
The factual aspect of the question in the OP has been answered. Those who wish to debate the morality of Santorum, Savage, Democrats, or Republicans are welcome to start at thread in Great Debates. Those who wish to discuss anal lubricants can open a thread in IMHO or MPSIMS.
