Skutnik
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English
Etymology
The name is thought to derive from Romanian scuti (“to absolve”); compare Romanian Scutelnici. The common noun comes from Martin Leonard Skutnik III, a guest at the 1982 State of the Union address; see quotations below.
Proper noun
Skutnik
- A surname.
Noun
Skutnik (plural Skutniks)
- (US, jargon, politics, media) A guest at the State of the Union address or a similar political event.
- Synonym: Lenny Skutnik
- 2001 July 8, William Safire, “On Language”, in New York Times Magazine, The Way We Live Now, page 15:
- When CNN’s Jeff Greenfield assured the crowd, “I haven't planted a skutnik here,” I stopped him: I had heard of a sputnik, the Russian word for the first Soviet satellite, but what was a skutnik? […] In 1995, the columnist William F. Buckley was one of the first to use the name as an eponym: “President Clinton was awash with Skutniks.”
2006 January 31, Richard Halicks, “STATE OF THE UNION: In the gallery tonight...”, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, page A1:
- Since that time, people recognized by the president during the State of the Union address have been known by insiders as “Lenny Skutniks.” As in: “Who are the Lenny Skutniks tonight?” There's even an online quiz that invites you to guess who will be tonight's Lenny Skutniks (the list had not yet been revealed Monday). Skutnik, it seems, is a brand name.
2011, Stephen Frantzich, Honored Guests: Citizen Heroes and the State of the Union, →ISBN, page 22:
- Lenny Skutnik moments have been called “human props”, “gimmicks”, “practiced stagecraft”, but the virulence of the criticism from a president’s political opponents only serves to prove the effectiveness of the strategy.
2020 January 17, Tony Messenger, “Missouri has a Medicaid crisis involving 100,000 children, and Parson ignores it”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, page A2:
- Among Parson’s Skutniks this week were Mayor Lyda Krewson and the other mayors of Missouri’s four largest cities. They sat in the audience while the Republican governor talked about doing something about inner-city violence, but refused to outline any specific gun proposals.