It occurred to me to wonder why the phrase tin-pot dictator<\/i> is still in such recent use. I don\u2019t think the word tin-pot<\/i> does much modifier duty these days outside the field of tyranny.\r\n
The phrase came in to use in the 19th century, along with, well, cheap mass-produced tin pots. And while it\u2019s a great phrase\u2014I particularly like the contrast of dictator<\/i>\u2019s air of menace and authority with the shabby domesticity of the tin pot\u2014I wouldn\u2019t be altogether sad to see it replaced with some other indication of a would-be tyrant\u2019s noisy, brittle, cruddy little ambition. Something perhaps more twenty-first century, or even twentieth.\r\n
Alternately, I suppose, I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing other things described as tin-pot: tin-pot streaming services, tin-pot activism, tin-pot educational philosophy, tin-pot synergy, tin-pot crowdfunding site, virtual tin-pot reality. Some action star could be referred to as a tin-pot Stallone, or a brash young writer as a tin-pot Hemingway. I do think that song-lyrics have to be tin-pan<\/i>, though.\r\n
But in fact very few people think of tin pots as noisy, brittle, cruddy replacements for the real thing, I think. Certain phrases just solidify and remain stuck for decades and decades. It\u2019s just how language works, illogical kludge that it is.\r\n
Thanks,
-Ed.\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hocking a tcheynik.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phrases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18039,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18038\/revisions\/18039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}