Weasel Words

[Michaelangelica]

Inspired by the book Weasel Words by Don Watson

and Confucius who said:

'First get the name right'

 

 

eg

Detention =Jail (gaol)

 

responsible

A word with which to escape responsibility.

"These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility for them."

Donald Rummsfield

 

accounting irregularity

1) an indiscretion involving money

2). . .theft motivated by excessive zeal

"Accounting irregularity may be the death knell for World Com. the second largest US phone company. . ."

Spectrum online 27/6/02

 

Get the idea?:)

--

Michael

[Mercedes Benzene]

I'm sorry. I really don't understand. :)

[Michaelangelica]

I'm sorry. I really don't understand. :shocked:

Sorry I did't explain properly -and even then it is hard.

Weasel words are words that have been stripped of meaning by politicians,media, public relations,diplomats,spin doctors management training companies.

it started with Thodore Roosevelt in 1916

"You can have universal training or you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word 'voluntary' to qualify the word 'universal, you are using a weasel word he said it has sucked all the meaning out of 'universal'.

Roosevelt said Weasel Words was "one of the defects of our nation"

 

Don Watson describes weasel words as ". . .the words of the powerful the treacherous and the unfaithful, spies, assassins and thieves. Bureaucrats and ideologues love them. Tyrants cannot do without them.

 

The newspeak of Orwell's 1984 is an invention, but also a satire on real states such as the Soviet Union where death from starvation and abuse in slave camps was recorded by officials as 'failure of the heart muscle'. .

 

". . . (weasel words occur where) . . .the official language is a kind of code that we must at least appear to understand, or be excluded . . . (found in). .business government departments language of the information age management marketing. It is there in the cant of [competitive advantage and human resources management, transparency, accountability; in the cliches consumer, client, key, core, going forwards, at the end of the day, outcomes-based.

 

When certain words of Richard Nixon's turned out to be untrue his minders described them as being "inoperative"

 

Adverbs and adjectives do alot of the work: perhaps, maybe, possibly, basically, realistically speaking

eg

" realistically speaking, the bottom line is basically that we will evaluate the issue in its context, and basically commit ourselves to endeavoring to achieve a more appropriate scenario with better outcomes for all stakeholders"

 

Maybe it is to hard a thread to start as weasel words are hard to recognise as they are so much apart of our world

 

--

[Mercedes Benzene]

Kinda like a cliche? ...but specifically regarding politics?

[Michaelangelica]

I just discovered there is a web forum

http://www.weaselwords.com.au/

Some examples from that site might help.

I am sure their are lots of scientific weasel words too

 

'We all learnt that the only failure in life is the failure to participate and came away as a team of people who are focused on clear outcomes.'

A dental company newsletter summing up their recent Vision Conference (thanks to Jill Knight)

 

'to ensure the target set was serviced appropriately'

U.S. military spokesman on the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and why they dropped a second bomb. Reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, June (thanks to Noel Burchmore)

 

'Obviously, the other five in the building did not, but he did for some reason. And we do not know ... as to whether or not it was because he might have been right outside (the targeted building) or whatever. We just don't have that granularity.'

Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell on why Zarqawi survived a bomb attack. Yahoo News 9 June (Thanks to Alasdair Baird)

 

'an act of asymmetrical warfare'

How Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Guantanamo Bay camp commander, described the suicides of three prisoners. Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2006. (thanks to Noel Burchmore

[Michaelangelica]

This is abeauty

'What we train our officers to do is what we call immediate incapacitation … Which is aiming for the head. I understand why it is that people say that's a shoot to kill policy but it is not a shoot to kill policy ...They shoot to incapacitate.'

/forums/images/smilies/banana_sign.gif

Asst Comm Steve House, Central Operations, Metropolitan Police answers questions about Operation Kratos - the Police strategy for combating suicide bombers. From BBC Panorama's “Stockwell: Countdown to killing”, 8 March 2006 BBC1. (thanks to Michael Crowe)

[paigetheoracle]

What about political correctness, not only as a term but a policy? It is the attempt to 'appear' what we are not, to hide our true feelings of fear or embarrassment (lie in other words). It is the 'attempt' to do the right thing, rather than be honest and really do the right thing. In schools it is lowering the goalposts, to appeal to the lowest common denominator (No wonder kids are revolting - they are being treated with contempt, rather than challenged: Why pick up that apple, gravity has put it there?). In other words it is used to hide our true feelings and our true abilities as well. As a weasel word, it has wormed itself into our society with devastating effect for our future and on our present, much like Chamberlin and appeasement. 'Please don't bully me, I think you're wonderful!'. 'Johnny doesn't have to do anything, he's wonderful as he is. In fact we're all equally wonderful'. Ambrose Bierce, where are you when we need you! (Author of 'The Devils Dictionary', a sideswipe at hypocrisy).:eek2:

[UncleAl]

Cf: The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce.

 

Accountancy - valuation of an endeavor upon liquidation.

Affordable housing - rights' warehousing.

Activism - whining with all costs paid and tax-exempt.

Affirmative Action - jobs given to those who cannot do them.

Art - the result of Federal funding of artists

Bilingualism - communication fostered by format incompatibility.

Challenged - crippled.

Community - threatening mob.

Compassion - an evolutionarily stupid act committed at others' expense.

Conflict resolution - stealing what cannot be earned.

Conservation - somebody else in the future deserves to consume it; and not them, either.

Democrat - a champion of those who embezzle your bar tab.

Dialogue - non-negotiable demands.

Discrimination - objective evaluation; standardized testing.

Diversity - mud brown as a celebration of all colors mixed.

Ebonics - the right to protect confused angry ignorance against achievement.

Economic policy - best guesses in general; payoffs in particular.

Endangered - existing on real estate that could be revenue-producing.

Environmentalism - whatever you have of value, we are against it.

Equal Opportunity - objective qualification is disqualifying.

Feminism - trusting sexuality to Feminists is like boarding your dog at a taxidermist. Sure, you'll get it back...

Gender - an artifical distinction imposed by society, except for homosexuality.

Globalization - universal opportunity creates pandemic poverty because only workers have money to spend.

Greed - masculine distortion of feminist envy.

Hate language - empirically validated opinion.

Homeless - bums.

Improvised Explosive Device - bomb

Indigenous peoples - last surviving squatters before civilization intruded.

Inequity - keeping score.

Issues - straw men embellished into tar babies.

Justice - extorted outcome.

Liberal - one who believes HIV and AIDS are spread by a lack of funding.

Liberal education - carving one's initials in the next generation's flesh.

Management - Technical incompetence exercising intellectual irresponsibility.

Modern art - Federal funding compensating the talent-challenged.

Multiculturalism - unity is achieved by division.

Natural - odorous, ignorant, dangerous, ineffective; always recommended to somebody else.

Organic produce - spoiled fruits and vegetables.

Ownership - taxable revenue source.

Poverty - the process by which opportunity requires personal responsibility.

Reconciliation - successful imposition of will.

Reverse discrimination - in heaben de massa gon be in de fields.

Responsible - skimming a cut.

Rights - appetites.

Robust - supported by somebody else's money, by law.

Self-esteem - delusion actively seeking repudiation.

Social justice - the race for academic nullity.

Social engineering - assassination of the future.

Social equity - snit plus hypenation equals qualification.

Social harmony - suppressed rancor.

Socialism - money is the opposite of wealth.

Social mobilization - riot.

Social progress - institutionalized charity.

Special - exploitable; expense chits reimbursed tax-free.

Studies - propaganda.

Sustainable development - Luddism.

Symbolic - meaningless and expensive (but compassionately subsidized).

Threatened - results gained only as consequences of efforts expended.

Vegetarian - crushes living plants between its molars as an act of compassion.

Volunteer - drafted under threat of retaliation.

Welfare - money given to those who have not earned it, by law.

Wilderness - Private resort for Enviro-whiners.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Libertarian - fascist too afraid to join the army.

 

TFS

[cwes99_03]

Weasel words are words or phrases someone uses to weasel out of a commitment or act. They inuendize, propagandize.

 

They make it sound different than what they actually mean.

 

Bill Clinton was a master of this. What was the word he wanted defined for him while under oath to say that he wasn't lieing?

Every national politician does it so well, because they always want to come off as clean despite being dirty. You find a word that doesn't have a connotation to it and use it instead of one that does have a connotation. Eventually you use it too much and it then picks up the same stigma as the other words, so you move on to more flowery and inventive combinations of words.

The press allows this instead of calling it what it really was. Clinton was an adulterist, but they instead would say he had an insatiable love of the feminine form.

 

Basically it is called Spin . Used to be called propaganda. Now it is going to be called Weasel Words apparently. How old is this book by this Watson character. The name of his very book is a weaselly way of making it look anew when it actually is a terribly old concept.

[Mercedes Benzene]

So is this kinda like a "weasel phrase":

 

"I hate to be rude but..."

[cwes99_03]

No that is just a common phrase with a bit of added sarcasm.

 

When you talk about a fire fight as a confrontation, or a pitched battle with insurgents as a routine mission.

 

Oh and feel free to put finger quotes around those words. """"

[Mercedes Benzene]

OH....

I just thought that since when you normally say that phrase, you do not really mean it.

But you say "I hate to be rude " because it allows you to "weasel" your way out of actually seeming rude...

I don't know. This whole concept is rather confusing to me.

[Michaelangelica]

Great you are all getting it !

Thanks

UncleAl

[TheFaithfulStone]

"Qualify for your chance to win."

 

"Limited lifetime guarantee."

 

"May contain one or more of the following."

 

"You could be our next winner."

 

TFS

[Buffy]

We have to seek dynamics of empowerment to successfully brand our initiatives so they convey the win-win attributes of right-sized strategic and tactical market communities.

 

Superior Solutions for Salacious Sales,

Buffy

[Michaelangelica]

Good one Buffy

Do you want to try for a traslation?

 

This bit of nonsense I got today

MY MESSAGE:

Do you have full spectrum lights that would operate on a240Volt system?

 

(as in Australia)

 

Thanks

 

Michael

 

The HELPFULL(!?) reply

 

Good Morning,

 

Thank you for contacting Full Spectrum Solutions, we look forward to providing you with assistance. Our products run a standard 110v but they can be used with a voltage converter. Please contact us if you need additional assistance, please note that we only ship to the US or Canada at this time. Thanks again,

 

Ty

 

Full Spectrum Solutions

 

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