What's in a word?

Oh Lordy, why do I find myself coming to the defence of Gordon Brown again? He's in deep do-do this time for calling an elderly lady a "bigot" - except he didn't, he referred to her as "a bigoted woman" which in my book is not quite the same thing. Leaving aside the question of whether a politician of his experience should ever have been caught out by an "open microphone", a bigoted person is someone who holds strong (not necessarily extreme) views on things and will not be moved from them. And this I think was Brown's grouse - what was the point of having me talk to this lady when clearly nothing I - or for that matter, anyone else - could say was going to change the way she thought. Waste of time. A bigot, on the other hand, is a word which has taken on certain unpleasant connotations of racism, antisemitism, homophobia and the like. It's another example of the media putting words into people's mouths which have never in fact been used. Not GB's finest hour by any means, but let's not make things worse by misquoting him.