Presidential Timbre or Presidential Timber?
0 voters
The former is more common than the latter, but I’m not convinced that being common equals being right. It seems to me that timbre is the word that people are looking for. What say you?
Ma’s stage presence is a little wooden, after all.
(sorry)
Presidential timber - The wooden promises he makes.
Presidential timbre - The tone of his voice when he’s lying.
There’s something in here about not seeing the forest for the trees, or maybe about if the President tells a lie in the forest and there’s no one there to believe it…
Depends. If it’s Clinton playing with Monica, or W delivering a speech, then timber.
If it’s Obama speaking, timbre.
I think timber describes your personal qualities and timbre describes the quality of your voice. I think it’s Presidential timber.
He’s got the right timber for the job.
I could see Presidential Timber in the sense of someone being good, dense raw material to be brutally hacked into shape for the presidency. Timbre would be the voice as has been said.
I don’t use the phrase and am just thinking aloud here:
Is it a lumber metaphor, that one is presidential material? Then I guess timber, with the verb ‘to be’.
Is is a musical metaphor, that one has a certain sound quality? Then timbre, with the verb ‘to have’.
My guess is that the former metaphor is more likely, and usage seems to bear that out, so I’m voting for timber. 
I am voting for timbre because, I assume that people want to refer to the ‘quality’ of the presidency. That extra je ne sais quoi. As for timber, hmmmm I’d prefer using mettle.
The American Heritage dictionary says timber. And that’s good enough for me. Maybe a Canadian Heritage dictionary will be different.
Center or centre? Grey or gray? 
None of the above … just keep it simple … simpel …
Timbre. It refers to tone. At least that’s how I understand it.
I’d go with “timber” for the reasons mentioned here:
[quote]this is just another case of an intelligent, literate, and thoughtful person committing an eggcorn. It’s not clear to me why using timber as a metaphor seems more unlikely to RFM than using the timbre of a tuning fork. After all, we also say that someone is “presidential material,” a metaphor very similar to the “timber” phrase.
Adamv showed pretty conclusively that “presidential timber” is the predominant choice of most writers today. I visited books.google.com, and I can now show that that has always been the case. The earliest instance of “presidential timber” I could find occurred in 1879. In the fifty year period between 1879 and 1929, there were 131 instances of “presidential timber.” But get this: I didn’t find a single instance of “presidential timbre” in that period. A few trickle in starting in the 1930s, but even today in 2006 there are only 24 instances of “timbre,” compared to 632 for “timbre [sic: should be “timber” – C.L.].” [/quote]
See also the definition of “timber” in MW:
Good find Cranky. Reminds me of when I was young and thought that the “pitch” in pitch black referred to tone and so was somehow a quantifier as in “really black.” I learned it wasn’t one day when I used “pitch white” in front of an adult.
It really depends on your purpose. People use timbre for building houses, for instance, rather than mettle. But you wouldn’t want to use timbre for a sword, mettle would be much better. What do you want from a President? The building of homes or the hewing of limbs? Or both? Are you referring to chopping a tree down with a mettle axe and then shouting “timbre” as it falls?
Is the context referring to the President’s investments? He has shares in mining or logging?
It really depends on your purpose. People use timbre for building houses, for instance, rather than mettle. But you wouldn’t want to use timbre for a sword, mettle would be much better. What do you want from a President? The building of homes or the hewing of limbs? Or both? Are you referring to chopping a tree down with a mettle axe and then shouting “timbre” as it falls?
Is the context referring to the President’s investments? He has shares in mining or logging?[/quote]
I said mettle not metal.
I voted for timber.
Here’s timbre used (in the context in question) in the title of a TIME article from the 1930s, but for obvious punning purposes:
[quote]Since radio became the No. 1 U. S. political hustings, politics has been no place or a marble mouth. Last week Radio Guide, most alert of the radio fan magazines, looked seven of the favorites in 1940’s Presidential race straight in the teeth, volunteered its opinion of the seven as radiorators:
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 97%; voice quality excellent, delivery excellent, mannerisms good. . . .
I heard that Obama has lumber.
After reading Cranky’s link, then, I’d say its just yet another daft Murkinism. Not one that will be part of my vocabulary. And despite what MW has to say, I’m still convinced it originally came about because of some stupid Yank not knowing how to spell correctly. 