How 'full stop' got to be the new 'period' in Washington
Full stop.听The British term for the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence, it鈥檚 become increasingly used in American politics 鈥� along with the rest of popular culture 鈥� to declare an end to any doubts whatsoever about something.
听鈥淎mericans have taken to using full stop not to literally mean a period, but to emphasize that they are referring to a complete sentence, or by extension, a complete idea or phenomenon,鈥� Ben Yagoda, an author and University of Delaware professor of journalism and English, on his 鈥淣ot One-Off Britishisms鈥� blog.
Before announcing his presidential bid, former Maryland Gov. Martin O鈥橫alley in December his disdain for the CIA鈥檚 highly controversial interrogation tactics. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe the United States should torture,鈥� he said. 鈥淧eriod. Full stop.鈥欌��
More recently, George Washington University political scientist John Sides was in May if early polls were relevant to who would take office: 鈥淭hey are not. Full stop.鈥� A month later, Republican Rick Santorum, queried to become Caitlyn Jenner, responded: 鈥淢y job as a human being is to treat everybody with dignity or respect 鈥� period, stop, full stop, no qualification to that.鈥� That same month, Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer discussed Hillary Clinton鈥檚 in the Hawkeye State: 鈥淭he reality is, this is a field where nobody has effectively stepped up to challenge Hillary Clinton, full stop.鈥�
鈥淔ull stop鈥� is sort of a younger cousin to 鈥渁t the end of the day,鈥� which began as a Britishism 鈥� to the of many in the UK 鈥� and, of course, is now common here. President Obama includes 鈥渇ull stop鈥� in his rhetorical arsenal from to
Its usage also on Capitol Hill during congressional floor debates in recent years, according to the Sunlight Foundation鈥檚 handy CapitolWords.org website. Among those mentioning it the most frequently: Clinton, when she was a New York senator.
Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark write their "Speaking Politics" blog exclusively for Politics Voices.听
