re: #4 EmmmieG

I am not sure I understand what uppity means. In the usual historical context, it was mean to describe blacks who refused to bow and scrape to whites in the South. What did it mean in the rest of the nation? I have no idea.

For me, it’s a poisoned word that you avoid, because for most people my age, it only has the first meaning, and any others have been lost.

Now, stuck-up, that I understand. That was pretty much endemic in junior high. Every girl described every girl she didn’t like as stuck-up.

The normal usage assumes that the person being described is presuming above their station. This is why it’s normally used to describe black people, women and children, although I’ve heard it used in old-fashioned Southern novels to describe the white nouveau riche as well.

Hence, in this use, it’s a desperate attempt to reduce Michelle Obama to a person who knows she isn’t really important enough to get the special seats and the special service and the special treatment, but is pushing for it anyway, because she likes putting one over on her ‘betters’—that would be Rush Limbaugh’s listeners—who therefore are entitled to mock her and put her back in her place.

Thing is, of course, that they are very, very mistaken in this. Michelle is not only inherently classier than Rush Limbaugh, she is the wife of the President of the United States of America, which, by itself, makes her a special person to be treated specially.