A word to the wise: handle language with care

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_mallick/20071001.html

Word games

War spawns Newspeak

Here's another word chosen to mislead in one case, to lessen suffering in another: fallen, as in "fallen soldiers." When this word first appeared in recent headlines, I assumed a Canadian soldier fell, but tragically onto a landmine. But no, he was dead. Stephen Harper likes the word because it muffles the effect of the news that a good Canadian has died in a pointless war that Harper favours.

Journalists refer to the "fallen" the way funeral directors refer to the "loved one." But they are dead. "Fallen" soldiers don't "come home," as the headlines would have it. They are flown home in a casket. They will never brighten their families' lives again; their deaths in a distant land were horrible and lonely and it's wrong to sugar-coat that with cowardly language.

It also puzzles me when the U.S. forces in Iraq are called a "surge." It's a troop buildup. Once they're out of the White House briefing room, reporters can call it what it is. Why don't they? And armed Blackwater employees in Iraq are not "contractors." They are mercenaries. Contractors are the people I hire to fail to sand my flooring.

War spawns Newspeak because reporters are spoon-fed information. "Embedded" refers to a reporter under the control of the military, whether he welcomes that warm berth or not. He's an insect in amber, he's stuck, and it leads to a sort of Stockholm Syndrome that can't be good for readers.

[Warpy]

1. There are places it's appropriate

like when I'd have to call a family and tell them that an elderly family member had just died. Euphemisms softened the blow a little, but not always that much.

It's unnecessary on newscasts and does smack of both dishonesty and rank hypocrisy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. "Ultimate Sacrifice" is the one I despise.

As if the GI's are just itching to get dismembered by an IED or be disemboweled by a grenade or have their brains blown out by a bullet while singing "Star Spangled Banner". Or, killed by "friendly fire".

[me b zola]

3. This was an interesting read

The author seems to be painfully aware of the Newspeak among other insidious things going on here and she pissed that this is spreading north of the boarder.

[Quantess]

4. There are too many euphemisms.

Another one is "contractor" instead of mercenary.