Because the PNM obviously lacks the poetic creativity to change its superlative from “great” to something more politically dynamic, we have all heard the expression great is the PNM a trillion times more even than “Coke Is It.” But while the latter tells a universal truth, the former grasps at straws—as of a drowning man having his final gasp of life.
Younger, I heard the reverse of good—as in good to throw away, good for nothing, good to keep far away, no good etc and found street-corner comedy in the play of words in the reduction and re-customising of good to a negative connotation.
It was some time ago “good” became a bad and this year “great is the PNM” has suffered the same reversal in fortunes as the slogan now reads, “Great is the PNM for the misery and suffering the party has caused the citizens of this country.”
Great has not always celebrated. The good as we all know of the Great Flood, the Great Fire, the Great Plague—implying that things unquantifiable, could easily attract great in its negative sense.
So great crooks, thieves, evil, wrongdoing, danger, incompetence—all qualify as great.
When, therefore, PNM detractors refer to those in red as great liars, as great pickpockets etc, their use of the word has etymological origins.
The PNM is greatly in need of a slogan that is more au courant with the times as it will no longer be great in its monotony and its susceptibility to mockery.