On Verbiage, Verbage

James Wood wrote a short piece in this week's New Yorker, entitled "Verbage" (subtitled: "The Republican war on words."). It ends with a quote from Governor Palin:

Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use, because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwords, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course that is strong, and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used.

The conclusion Wood comes to is that "the coinage of 'verbage'" is the best example of "the Republican disdain for words [...], so close to garbage, so far from language."

Wood is alluding to the origin of "verbage" as a misspelling or mispronunciation of "verbiage." (See: verbage, verbiage.) However, it is also interesting to note that Palin calling McCain's words verbage is not without irony, unwittingly comparing his quote to garbage.