Catchword: rubber room
Part of speech:
n. The part of speech reflects that used in the
full entry, and not necessarily the part of speech as it is used in the quotation below.
Quotation: Reluctant to mess with the Speaker’s monument without strong backup, the G.S.A. boss, Gerald Carmen, asked for a report from his Office of Oversight, which is headed by William Clinkscales, who gained fame during the Carter years by blowing the whistle on Federal waste. For that, the Carterites had placed him in a “rubber room”—bureaucratese for an office without work to do—until Republicans came in and made him the agency’s official whistleblower.
Article or Document Title:
“Ozymondias O’Neill”
Author:
William Safire
Article, document, publication, web site:
New York Times
Date of publication:
Apr. 11, 1983