Sarah Palin
"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate"
In August, a plan to build an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero stirred a national debate. The so-called Ground Zero mosque became a hot-button issue, with some defending religious freedom and others urging sensitivity to families of victims of the 9/11 attacks. Sarah Palin stood on the latter side, tweeting that Muslims ought to "refudiate" the plan. The problem? Refudiate isn't actually a word, though the New Oxford American Dictionary did dub it "word of the year" for 2010. Palin kept in good spirits about the flub, tweeting, "'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!" The comparison to Shakespeare angered literary nerds, leading them to invent the #shakespalin hashtag on Twitter, which was attached to mangled versions of the Bard's text.