CNN Lobbied Oxford Dictionary to Add the Word “Russianoligarch”

Dateline: ATLANTA—CNN has lobbied Oxford Dictionary to add “Russianoligarch” to the English language.

Many viewers of cable news are perplexed that CNN’s analysts and commentators seem incapable of applying the word “oligarch” to any wealthy and influential non-Russian, but insist on speaking as though oligarchs are by definition Russian.

But now CNN has gone a step further in seeking to formalize its misunderstanding by adjusting the Oxford Dictionary to reflect its questionable usage.

According to political pseudoscientist Julio Cabrera, “It could be that CNN is reflexively anti-Russian or pro-American, since by implication, the CNN pundits are united in pretending that the United States isn’t a plutocracy even though America has by far the most billionaires in the world, and the American ones dwarf the wealthiest Russians.”

An alternative explanation is that “CNN’s journalists are lazy and fall into the habit of resorting to memes to avoid having to think much before they speak.”

In the same manner, said Mr. Cabrera, CNN will “chant the clichés” of a “grilling” on Capitol Hill, a “bombshell” report, or a “dumpster fire” or “firestorm” of a problem.

“When you come down to it,” said Christian Science Monitor reporter Lilly Grindstone, “it’s just bad writing. You’re not supposed to speak or write in clichés and memes. George Orwell pointed out decades ago that when you rely on prepackaged phrases, you stop thinking, which leaves you vulnerable to towing some company line.”

Historians agree that Russia did convert to an oligarchy or a kleptocracy soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, because Russia under former-President Boris Yeltsin leaped in the opposite direction towards crony capitalism, privatizing Russian assets and allowing Russian millionaires to buy up most of the Russian Federation at bargain prices.

But Russia isn’t the only country that’s arguably controlled by a powerful minority—and that’s all the word “oligarchy” means: rule by a few. Indeed, said Mr. Cabrera, “besides the egalitarian Scandinavian democracies, most countries are oligarchies: directly or indirectly, from monarchies to democratic republics, the wealthiest one percent of the population tends to have a disproportionate share of political power.”

A spokesperson for the Oxford Dictionary dismissed CNN’s lobbying efforts as futile. “The dictionary reflects the language’s natural evolution, not some arrogant, misbegotten scheme to dictate how the world should be, from some privileged position. Indeed, CNN seems to have learned such maneuvers from the American oligarchs who control the legislative output of that country’s ‘democracy’ from K Street.”