pinko nonsense
- noun
- Slur
- Some commentators dismissed the senator's suggestions as mere pinko nonsense.
Examples
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He called the proposal pinko nonsense and refused to listen further.
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That article was full of pinko nonsense!
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You can't just brush off every criticism as pinko nonsense.
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I can't believe you bought into that pinko nonsense.
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Many voters considered his ideas to be pinko nonsense that disregarded economic realities.
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The journalist criticized the report, calling it nothing but pinko nonsense disguised as fact.
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It's frustrating when people dismiss serious debates as just pinko nonsense without engaging with the arguments.
Synonyms
A rude phrase people use to describe a liberal political plan
A strong, unnecessary worry about liberal ideas
Antonyms
How Left
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense is directly compositional: 'pinko' (leftist, derogatory) modifies 'nonsense' (worthless or meaningless talk), so the phrase simply labels certain ideas as leftist and dismissible. Although 'pinko' is colloquial/derogatory, the modifier+noun structure makes the overall meaning predictable to a learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Pinko nonsense may come from old political talk where pink was used to call someone a little bit 'red' (a word for real communists) and so a bit too left. Putting pink with nonsense made a quick insult for 'left' ideas to ignore, so today it means ideas someone calls silly or wrong because they seem too left.