Disintermediate

 

“I continue to want — and to try — to disintermediate myself from this muddle, edify the corporate audit and existential process we are in — while also being a responsible board member, daughter and person,” Chelsea wrote in the 2011 e-mail.

I’ll spend no time on this (it’s like shooting fish in a barrel), but Chelsea Clinton's Wikileaks-unearthed email sentence is about the most pretentious and pathetic thing I’ve ever read.  

I didn’t want to post this during election season (I didn’t post anything then), but this has been gnawing at me. 

   

Years ago a friend, a smart, very accomplished person who isn’t the least bit pretentious, but is highly insecure, told me how much he liked the word “disintermediate.”  I don’t.  Hardly anyone understands it and even though it’s easy to figure out, why not just use a more common expression, “disentangle,” for example?

As far as “edify the corporate audit and existential process we are in,” I’ve handled lots of corporate audits and I don’t think the word “edify” applies or is suitable, grammatically or otherwise, ever.  As for the “existential process we are in,” gag me with a spoon.

Funny that despite the fact that she apparently holds an Oxford degree in social sciences awarded for a study of the Clinton Foundation's work, Ms. Clinton doesn’t use the Oxford comma.

Hateful.  Begone.