Burke: Use of weasel words making common ground slippery

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

There was a time when words had meaning. An enemy of the people was someone who wanted to hurt us, such as the Nazis, the Soviets, the KKK, Taliban, drug cartels, or ISIS; not a newspaper or TV network.

Likewise, if I said something patently false, like there were five million fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, people wouldn’t call it an alternate fact, or that I’d misspoke, or that I could walk-back the statement without consequences; they’d simply say I lied and my reputation would be kaput.

But today, words are politically perverted, twisted and tortured. People don’t use words to say what they mean, they use words to say what they don’t mean. It’s done to confuse and with no apparent fear of a ruined reputation.

Two quick examples:

“We incurred collateral damage around the target,” sounds better than, “We killed a bunch of women and children in a drone strike.”

And downsizing or rightsizing, as in “The EPA is downsizing/right-sizing its water and air enforcement division,” sounds better than saying we just fired the people protecting our environment.

http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/burke-use-of-weasel-words-making-common-ground-slippery/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=9a6a76d6dd-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-9a6a76d6dd-228635337

[guillaumeb]

1. Another example of classic weasel words: "defense budget".

As opposed to, we spend billions to get our way everywhere.

[shraby]

2. They are called weasel words for a reason.

Consider the weasel. He sneaks into the henhouse in the night and wantonly kills chickens for the sake of killing them..not to eat them because he's hungry.

Weasel words are used with no thought to what damage they are doing. They are spoken for the sake of speaking them. Usually to destroy and not build.

[Blue_Tires]

3. Corporate and Military euphemisms

have been around for decades already and are pretty well known...