I am not, in this season of completely unexpected but totally inevitable political events, going to talk about the language some presidential candidates have used for the size, shape, and function of body parts belonging to themselves and their loved ones. In that, by the way, I am part of a group small enough to meet in the elevator of my building. An elevator which, like most in New York, is not all that big. (There. I’ve justified including this topic in my blog by creating a microscopic link to New York City. Now, back to politics.)

In this post I turn my attention to how campaigns end –  not that many do. Instead, candidates now “suspend” their bids for the nomination. “To suspend” is to call a temporary halt to an action, to pause before resuming whatever was suspended. It’s less permanent than “dropping out,” “ceasing,” or, heaven help us, “giving in.” Since the days of Richard Nixon, who famously said that he was “not a quitter” (and, at another time, that he was also “not a crook”), presidential hopefuls have suspended and not ended their efforts. Mostly. Mike Huckabee, who I expect would disagree with me on many issues, is my favorite campaign-ender. He said that he stopped running for president because of illness: “Voters are sick of me.” Now that’s honesty.

All this suspending makes me wonder whether the candidates are secretly hoping that at the last minute they will be called out of seclusion (“suspended animation”?) to become their party’s standard-bearer. And this year those hopes may not be entirely unrealistic. But what about other definitions of “suspend”? “The word also means “to hang something.” Because it’s “something” and not “someone,” I doubt this definition applies to any candidates’ secret hopes.  Finally, “suspend” may be “to hold off punishment until a specified period of time passes without further offenses.” Politicians may hope that this definition applies and that they will escape punishment for their campaign excesses, but the rest of us . . . well, most of us view “without further offenses” as a poor bet. Like, awesomely poor. Epically poor. The greatest poor ever.

See? The language of this campaign is contagious. I’d better suspend this post now.