I need some 'splainin' done

[Ed Suspicious]

What is it called when a politician drops the "g" at the end of a ing word presumably to sound more folksy and to distance themselves from their education so the common folk don't see them as elitist ie. droppin', explainin', runnin', etc. I see both the president and his opponent do this. There has to be a name for it.

[nichomachus]

1. Concern noted

[Ed Suspicious]

4. Not trolling, just wondering.

[valerief]

2. Informality.

[WI_DEM]

3. Lord Peter Whimsey does it too in the Dorothy Sayers detective series.

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. I suspect that President Obama doing it ...

is quite a different matter than romney doing it.

Being aquainted with more than a few accomplished African-Americans ... I can say that everyone of them, when comfortable in an informal setting will loosen their language; but get those same African-Americans in a formal setting and they will speak impeccible english.

Whereas, this loosening (I suspect) is quite foreign to, and contrived with, romney.

[Ed Suspicious]

6. It feels particularly patronizing from Romney. Indeed. n/t

[BigAnth]

7. I think that it's called "dumbing down" or "dumbin' down". EOM

[monmouth]

8. Doin' the Rick Perry thang..n/t

[LaydeeBug]

9. Really? Do you REALLY think he is doing that on purpose?

I think he is being colloquial.

[sad sally]

10. It's just a matter of where you put your tongue at the end of a word, and the term

is from the conventional orthography: -ing is written as -in', as in "she's openin' the door."