The deliberate use of misleading terminology [duplicate]
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This question already has an answer here:
What is the word for “something that is true, but misleading”?
2 answers
Is there a word or phrase which describes "choice of misleading words", or the negation: "choice of non-misleading words"? The nearest phrases I can think of are linguistic deception, or controlled language, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
For example, Richard Stallman actively opposes such misuse of language:
I think it is ok for authors (please let's not call them creators, they are not gods) to ask for money for copies of their works (please let's not devalue these works by calling them content) in order to gain income (the term compensation falsely implies it is a matter of making up for some kind of damages).
Another example is "credit" in banking, which just makes "debt" sound like a good thing.
EDIT: The term may either refer to an individual's malicious use of misleading terminology, or to widely-accepted use of misleading terminology. The answers reflect this, but my question does not.
single-word-requests phrases idioms terminology
marked as duplicate by jimm101, Jason Bassford, JJJ, Edwin Ashworth
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May 30 at 13:47
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
add a comment
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This question already has an answer here:
What is the word for “something that is true, but misleading”?
2 answers
Is there a word or phrase which describes "choice of misleading words", or the negation: "choice of non-misleading words"? The nearest phrases I can think of are linguistic deception, or controlled language, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
For example, Richard Stallman actively opposes such misuse of language:
I think it is ok for authors (please let's not call them creators, they are not gods) to ask for money for copies of their works (please let's not devalue these works by calling them content) in order to gain income (the term compensation falsely implies it is a matter of making up for some kind of damages).
Another example is "credit" in banking, which just makes "debt" sound like a good thing.
EDIT: The term may either refer to an individual's malicious use of misleading terminology, or to widely-accepted use of misleading terminology. The answers reflect this, but my question does not.
single-word-requests phrases idioms terminology
marked as duplicate by jimm101, Jason Bassford, JJJ, Edwin Ashworth
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May 30 at 13:47
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
See also all the references here on 'obscurantism'
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:43
The duplicate is not well titled, but OP there states "... this is not meant to be about politics but strictly language usage".
– Edwin Ashworth
May 30 at 13:49
1
People not agreeing with you about what words to use is not "dishonesty".
– Acccumulation
Jun 6 at 14:39
add a comment
|
This question already has an answer here:
What is the word for “something that is true, but misleading”?
2 answers
Is there a word or phrase which describes "choice of misleading words", or the negation: "choice of non-misleading words"? The nearest phrases I can think of are linguistic deception, or controlled language, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
For example, Richard Stallman actively opposes such misuse of language:
I think it is ok for authors (please let's not call them creators, they are not gods) to ask for money for copies of their works (please let's not devalue these works by calling them content) in order to gain income (the term compensation falsely implies it is a matter of making up for some kind of damages).
Another example is "credit" in banking, which just makes "debt" sound like a good thing.
EDIT: The term may either refer to an individual's malicious use of misleading terminology, or to widely-accepted use of misleading terminology. The answers reflect this, but my question does not.
single-word-requests phrases idioms terminology
This question already has an answer here:
What is the word for “something that is true, but misleading”?
2 answers
Is there a word or phrase which describes "choice of misleading words", or the negation: "choice of non-misleading words"? The nearest phrases I can think of are linguistic deception, or controlled language, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
For example, Richard Stallman actively opposes such misuse of language:
I think it is ok for authors (please let's not call them creators, they are not gods) to ask for money for copies of their works (please let's not devalue these works by calling them content) in order to gain income (the term compensation falsely implies it is a matter of making up for some kind of damages).
Another example is "credit" in banking, which just makes "debt" sound like a good thing.
EDIT: The term may either refer to an individual's malicious use of misleading terminology, or to widely-accepted use of misleading terminology. The answers reflect this, but my question does not.
This question already has an answer here:
What is the word for “something that is true, but misleading”?
2 answers
single-word-requests phrases idioms terminology
single-word-requests phrases idioms terminology
edited Jul 24 at 11:39
Turkeyphant
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asked May 28 at 10:32
MrMartinMrMartin
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marked as duplicate by jimm101, Jason Bassford, JJJ, Edwin Ashworth
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May 30 at 13:47
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
marked as duplicate by jimm101, Jason Bassford, JJJ, Edwin Ashworth
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May 30 at 13:47
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
marked as duplicate by jimm101, Jason Bassford, JJJ, Edwin Ashworth
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May 30 at 13:47
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
See also all the references here on 'obscurantism'
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:43
The duplicate is not well titled, but OP there states "... this is not meant to be about politics but strictly language usage".
– Edwin Ashworth
May 30 at 13:49
1
People not agreeing with you about what words to use is not "dishonesty".
– Acccumulation
Jun 6 at 14:39
add a comment
|
See also all the references here on 'obscurantism'
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:43
The duplicate is not well titled, but OP there states "... this is not meant to be about politics but strictly language usage".
– Edwin Ashworth
May 30 at 13:49
1
People not agreeing with you about what words to use is not "dishonesty".
– Acccumulation
Jun 6 at 14:39
See also all the references here on 'obscurantism'
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:43
See also all the references here on 'obscurantism'
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:43
The duplicate is not well titled, but OP there states "... this is not meant to be about politics but strictly language usage".
– Edwin Ashworth
May 30 at 13:49
The duplicate is not well titled, but OP there states "... this is not meant to be about politics but strictly language usage".
– Edwin Ashworth
May 30 at 13:49
1
1
People not agreeing with you about what words to use is not "dishonesty".
– Acccumulation
Jun 6 at 14:39
People not agreeing with you about what words to use is not "dishonesty".
– Acccumulation
Jun 6 at 14:39
add a comment
|
10 Answers
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George Orwell, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, used the terms doublethink (the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct) and Newspeak (a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought). These two have been combined to form the term doublespeak (frequently incorrectly attributed to Orwell's 1984) meaning "language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words." More information and references at Wikipedia. The OP mentioned Nineteen Eighty-Four but not doublespeak.
Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
1
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
4
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
2
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
1
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
|
show 5 more comments
How about:
obfuscate
VERB [WITH OBJECT]
1 Make obscure, unclear, or
unintelligible.
‘the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate
their etymological origins’
1.1 Bewilder (someone) ‘the new rule is more likely to obfuscate people than enlighten them’
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/obfuscate
"The use of obfuscating language hid their true meaning"
obfuscation
NOUN
mass noun
1 The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
‘when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation’
count noun ‘ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and obfuscations’
1
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
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When a writer or speaker prevaricates, he chooses misleading words.
Part of the M-W usage notes:
Prevaricate and its synonyms "lie" and "equivocate" all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. "Lie" is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying he or she was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. "Prevaricate" is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of "lie," usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. "Equivocate" is similar to "prevaricate," but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
1
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
1
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
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Another choice might be weasel words
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word
: a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position
2
Helpful reminder:code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.
– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
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This is an interesting example, because Stallman is talking tendentious nonsense. There are many cases in this world where language is misused with intent to deceive, but none of the examples he gives are anything of the kind.
In modern North American English, when we call a creative person a "creator", we all agree that we mean they create something, usually intangible, usually for pay: They draw pictures, or write poems, or computer programs, or songs, or some such. There is no implication at all that the person is a god, or god-like, in any way. Literally nobody on this planet actually believes that, nobody in this discussion, nobody anywhere -- with the possible exception of Richard Stallman, who's a professional controversialist. It's quite possible that he believed it while he was saying it. I suppose it's even possible that he believes it still. But Richard Stallman doesn't have the authority to redefine the English language for the rest of us.
Likewise, in Cambridge, MA where Stallman has lived for decades, if you say "compensation" in any context remotely job-related and nobody had mentioned a lawsuit, people assume you're talking about how much they get paid (source: Eleven years living in Cambridge and Somerville and working at software startups around town and on Route 128. Also, a dictionary).
More importantly: If these terms were somehow inaccurate, exactly who would be misleading who, and in what way? Where is the "deception" here? If somebody refers to my salary as "compensation", are they trying to deceive me into believing I've been damaged or injured in some way by showing up at the office (or the asteroid mine)? Does that even begin to make sense? It's quite accurate to say that work costs me time I could be devoting to something else, but there's no suggestion that my employer has done me any wrong. It's absolutely normal for a word to have two different meanings in two different contexts. "Drive" means one thing when I'm talking to the IT guy about my new laptop, another thing on my guitar pedalboard, and a third when we're getting in the car to go camping. No native speaker of English, including Richard Stallman, finds this at all confusing. Last night a singer said to me, "The bridge is the hook, let's repeat it before the last verse". Nobody thought she was trying to trick me into becoming a pirate and driving to work the wrong way (look, I just maliciously tricked you into thinking that my car is a signal-processing device).
If somebody refers to me as a "creator" of code, or of songs, are they really trying to trick me into thinking I have divine powers? Is that even imaginable?
No. People just like the sound of these words, the same way many younger suburban northeastern American white people seem to like to say "y'all" and "on the regular".
I haven't heard code described as "content", ever (unless in the sense of a MIME content type), but there are a lot of things I haven't heard, so I'll let that one pass.
As somebody said in comments, this is just "Stallman being Stallman". He's a well-known controversialist and gadfly in the field of computer programming. He wears funny colorful clothing and says colorful things to get attention. Exhibit A above. The disingenuous literal-mindedness game he's playing is common to computer programmers and baby-boomer political hippies; he's both.
His net contribution to the field has been massively positive in my view, and his self-promotion has been part of that. You don't have to like the guy to appreciate the immense value of what he's done. But that's another subject.
The only thing interesting here is the irony: Stallman and the folks waving the 1984 flag are deliberately misrepresenting the meanings of these words.
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There's always that gem from Churchill;
"terminological inexactitude."
This is often used to say someone is lying, but also means exactly what it says; being inexact in one's terminology, or using misleading words, or words intended to mislead.
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I'm a fan of bamboozle:
to conceal one's true motives from, especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end
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|
Why not euphemism?
From Greek euphemismos "use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one.”
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|
In addition to George Orwell, I would like to mention political consultant Frank Luntz. During the last two decades he has become the poster boy for the strategy of methodically crafting vocabularies to frame the political discourse to the benefit of your side. Here are some examples of political neologisms attributed to him:
Death tax (instead of estate tax)
Climate change (instead of global warming)
Government takeover (of healthcare)
Energy exploration (instead of oil drilling)
I have seen terms such as luntzism, luntzian or luntzspeak used to refer to this type of neologisms, but I don't think any of them have caught on. These words would probably only be understandable by people who are familiar with Luntz.
I think Richard Stallman's objections to the words he mentions in parenthesis is not that he thinks people will misunderstand what they refer to, but that they will induce a certain way of thinking about the things they refer to, much like Luntz's phrases are designed to do.
George Orwell first wrote about something similar in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of
the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in
India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom
bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which
are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with
the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has
to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy
vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the
inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms
and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry:
this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of
the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed
if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of
them.
By his own account, Frank Luntz was heavily influenced by reading Politics and The English Language, but probably not in the way Orwell had intended.
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I'm not sure if you're looking for a verb meaning "to use misleading words" or if you're looking for a noun referring to the misleading words themselves or the act of using misleading words.
Either way, consider an adjective: Disingenuous
disingenuous (adj). Lacking in candor. Also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness: CALCULATING.
(From Merriam-Webster online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld)
While I'm not finding this (explicitly) in any dictionary definitions, I'm also used to "disingenuous" carrying a connotation of being manipulative or sneaky.
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10 Answers
10
active
oldest
votes
10 Answers
10
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
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active
oldest
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George Orwell, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, used the terms doublethink (the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct) and Newspeak (a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought). These two have been combined to form the term doublespeak (frequently incorrectly attributed to Orwell's 1984) meaning "language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words." More information and references at Wikipedia. The OP mentioned Nineteen Eighty-Four but not doublespeak.
Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
1
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
4
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
2
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
1
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
|
show 5 more comments
George Orwell, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, used the terms doublethink (the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct) and Newspeak (a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought). These two have been combined to form the term doublespeak (frequently incorrectly attributed to Orwell's 1984) meaning "language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words." More information and references at Wikipedia. The OP mentioned Nineteen Eighty-Four but not doublespeak.
Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
1
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
4
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
2
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
1
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
|
show 5 more comments
George Orwell, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, used the terms doublethink (the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct) and Newspeak (a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought). These two have been combined to form the term doublespeak (frequently incorrectly attributed to Orwell's 1984) meaning "language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words." More information and references at Wikipedia. The OP mentioned Nineteen Eighty-Four but not doublespeak.
George Orwell, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, used the terms doublethink (the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct) and Newspeak (a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought). These two have been combined to form the term doublespeak (frequently incorrectly attributed to Orwell's 1984) meaning "language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words." More information and references at Wikipedia. The OP mentioned Nineteen Eighty-Four but not doublespeak.
edited Jul 24 at 11:13
Turkeyphant
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answered May 28 at 13:29
GEdgarGEdgar
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Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
1
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
4
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
2
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
1
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
|
show 5 more comments
Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
1
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
4
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
2
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
1
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
Exactly! I didn't realize the term had entered common use.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 13:35
1
1
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
@MrMartin Yes, it has been common (or common enough) since the 80's](books.google.com/ngrams/…) (though I thought it was more common in the 60's than the graph shows (1984 was published in 1948).
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:47
4
4
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
As the Wikipedia article points out, "doublespeak" is not in "1984". The term used there is "newspeak".
– Drew
May 28 at 20:32
2
2
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
First known use of "doublespeak" after publication of "1984" is not the same thing as "1984" itself having the first use of "doublespeak".
– Drew
May 29 at 1:18
1
1
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
Using doublespeak is double plus ungood.
– JimmyJames
May 29 at 19:38
|
show 5 more comments
How about:
obfuscate
VERB [WITH OBJECT]
1 Make obscure, unclear, or
unintelligible.
‘the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate
their etymological origins’
1.1 Bewilder (someone) ‘the new rule is more likely to obfuscate people than enlighten them’
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/obfuscate
"The use of obfuscating language hid their true meaning"
obfuscation
NOUN
mass noun
1 The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
‘when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation’
count noun ‘ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and obfuscations’
1
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
add a comment
|
How about:
obfuscate
VERB [WITH OBJECT]
1 Make obscure, unclear, or
unintelligible.
‘the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate
their etymological origins’
1.1 Bewilder (someone) ‘the new rule is more likely to obfuscate people than enlighten them’
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/obfuscate
"The use of obfuscating language hid their true meaning"
obfuscation
NOUN
mass noun
1 The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
‘when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation’
count noun ‘ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and obfuscations’
1
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
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|
How about:
obfuscate
VERB [WITH OBJECT]
1 Make obscure, unclear, or
unintelligible.
‘the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate
their etymological origins’
1.1 Bewilder (someone) ‘the new rule is more likely to obfuscate people than enlighten them’
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/obfuscate
"The use of obfuscating language hid their true meaning"
obfuscation
NOUN
mass noun
1 The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
‘when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation’
count noun ‘ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and obfuscations’
How about:
obfuscate
VERB [WITH OBJECT]
1 Make obscure, unclear, or
unintelligible.
‘the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate
their etymological origins’
1.1 Bewilder (someone) ‘the new rule is more likely to obfuscate people than enlighten them’
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/obfuscate
"The use of obfuscating language hid their true meaning"
obfuscation
NOUN
mass noun
1 The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
‘when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation’
count noun ‘ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and obfuscations’
edited May 30 at 8:40
answered May 28 at 13:08
WendyGWendyG
2,0665 silver badges16 bronze badges
2,0665 silver badges16 bronze badges
1
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
add a comment
|
1
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
1
1
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
+1 but obfuscation is probably the noun that would fit the OP's question.
– Greenonline
May 30 at 4:16
add a comment
|
When a writer or speaker prevaricates, he chooses misleading words.
Part of the M-W usage notes:
Prevaricate and its synonyms "lie" and "equivocate" all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. "Lie" is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying he or she was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. "Prevaricate" is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of "lie," usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. "Equivocate" is similar to "prevaricate," but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
1
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
1
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
add a comment
|
When a writer or speaker prevaricates, he chooses misleading words.
Part of the M-W usage notes:
Prevaricate and its synonyms "lie" and "equivocate" all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. "Lie" is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying he or she was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. "Prevaricate" is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of "lie," usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. "Equivocate" is similar to "prevaricate," but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
1
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
1
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
add a comment
|
When a writer or speaker prevaricates, he chooses misleading words.
Part of the M-W usage notes:
Prevaricate and its synonyms "lie" and "equivocate" all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. "Lie" is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying he or she was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. "Prevaricate" is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of "lie," usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. "Equivocate" is similar to "prevaricate," but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.
When a writer or speaker prevaricates, he chooses misleading words.
Part of the M-W usage notes:
Prevaricate and its synonyms "lie" and "equivocate" all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. "Lie" is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying he or she was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. "Prevaricate" is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of "lie," usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. "Equivocate" is similar to "prevaricate," but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.
answered May 28 at 10:58
rajah9rajah9
11.2k2 gold badges23 silver badges47 bronze badges
11.2k2 gold badges23 silver badges47 bronze badges
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
1
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
1
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
add a comment
|
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
1
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
1
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
That's very close to the desired meaning, although prevaricating seems to be more about speaking evasively to escape accusation, rather than in the sense of misleading to manipulate. This is not clear from my question, but it is the meaning of the quote.
– MrMartin
May 28 at 12:28
1
1
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
@MrMartin But that's what misleading is.
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:44
1
1
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
Prevaricate is exactly the word that matches the OP's leading definition, with its focus on misleading. But the examples are of weasel-words and euphemisms.
– CCTO
May 29 at 19:15
add a comment
|
Another choice might be weasel words
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word
: a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position
2
Helpful reminder:code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.
– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
add a comment
|
Another choice might be weasel words
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word
: a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position
2
Helpful reminder:code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.
– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
add a comment
|
Another choice might be weasel words
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word
: a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position
Another choice might be weasel words
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word
: a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position
edited May 29 at 11:37
answered May 28 at 19:11
Lord PeterLord Peter
1,1681 gold badge5 silver badges9 bronze badges
1,1681 gold badge5 silver badges9 bronze badges
2
Helpful reminder:code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.
– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
add a comment
|
2
Helpful reminder:code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.
– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
2
2
Helpful reminder:
code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
Helpful reminder:
code-blocks
here are exclusively for quoting code; please use *italics*, **bold** or >quotes.– Lordology
May 28 at 19:40
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
A good single-word synonom for this would be "legalese" or "legaleese" both rhyming with "sleeze"
– Criggie
May 29 at 0:19
add a comment
|
This is an interesting example, because Stallman is talking tendentious nonsense. There are many cases in this world where language is misused with intent to deceive, but none of the examples he gives are anything of the kind.
In modern North American English, when we call a creative person a "creator", we all agree that we mean they create something, usually intangible, usually for pay: They draw pictures, or write poems, or computer programs, or songs, or some such. There is no implication at all that the person is a god, or god-like, in any way. Literally nobody on this planet actually believes that, nobody in this discussion, nobody anywhere -- with the possible exception of Richard Stallman, who's a professional controversialist. It's quite possible that he believed it while he was saying it. I suppose it's even possible that he believes it still. But Richard Stallman doesn't have the authority to redefine the English language for the rest of us.
Likewise, in Cambridge, MA where Stallman has lived for decades, if you say "compensation" in any context remotely job-related and nobody had mentioned a lawsuit, people assume you're talking about how much they get paid (source: Eleven years living in Cambridge and Somerville and working at software startups around town and on Route 128. Also, a dictionary).
More importantly: If these terms were somehow inaccurate, exactly who would be misleading who, and in what way? Where is the "deception" here? If somebody refers to my salary as "compensation", are they trying to deceive me into believing I've been damaged or injured in some way by showing up at the office (or the asteroid mine)? Does that even begin to make sense? It's quite accurate to say that work costs me time I could be devoting to something else, but there's no suggestion that my employer has done me any wrong. It's absolutely normal for a word to have two different meanings in two different contexts. "Drive" means one thing when I'm talking to the IT guy about my new laptop, another thing on my guitar pedalboard, and a third when we're getting in the car to go camping. No native speaker of English, including Richard Stallman, finds this at all confusing. Last night a singer said to me, "The bridge is the hook, let's repeat it before the last verse". Nobody thought she was trying to trick me into becoming a pirate and driving to work the wrong way (look, I just maliciously tricked you into thinking that my car is a signal-processing device).
If somebody refers to me as a "creator" of code, or of songs, are they really trying to trick me into thinking I have divine powers? Is that even imaginable?
No. People just like the sound of these words, the same way many younger suburban northeastern American white people seem to like to say "y'all" and "on the regular".
I haven't heard code described as "content", ever (unless in the sense of a MIME content type), but there are a lot of things I haven't heard, so I'll let that one pass.
As somebody said in comments, this is just "Stallman being Stallman". He's a well-known controversialist and gadfly in the field of computer programming. He wears funny colorful clothing and says colorful things to get attention. Exhibit A above. The disingenuous literal-mindedness game he's playing is common to computer programmers and baby-boomer political hippies; he's both.
His net contribution to the field has been massively positive in my view, and his self-promotion has been part of that. You don't have to like the guy to appreciate the immense value of what he's done. But that's another subject.
The only thing interesting here is the irony: Stallman and the folks waving the 1984 flag are deliberately misrepresenting the meanings of these words.
add a comment
|
This is an interesting example, because Stallman is talking tendentious nonsense. There are many cases in this world where language is misused with intent to deceive, but none of the examples he gives are anything of the kind.
In modern North American English, when we call a creative person a "creator", we all agree that we mean they create something, usually intangible, usually for pay: They draw pictures, or write poems, or computer programs, or songs, or some such. There is no implication at all that the person is a god, or god-like, in any way. Literally nobody on this planet actually believes that, nobody in this discussion, nobody anywhere -- with the possible exception of Richard Stallman, who's a professional controversialist. It's quite possible that he believed it while he was saying it. I suppose it's even possible that he believes it still. But Richard Stallman doesn't have the authority to redefine the English language for the rest of us.
Likewise, in Cambridge, MA where Stallman has lived for decades, if you say "compensation" in any context remotely job-related and nobody had mentioned a lawsuit, people assume you're talking about how much they get paid (source: Eleven years living in Cambridge and Somerville and working at software startups around town and on Route 128. Also, a dictionary).
More importantly: If these terms were somehow inaccurate, exactly who would be misleading who, and in what way? Where is the "deception" here? If somebody refers to my salary as "compensation", are they trying to deceive me into believing I've been damaged or injured in some way by showing up at the office (or the asteroid mine)? Does that even begin to make sense? It's quite accurate to say that work costs me time I could be devoting to something else, but there's no suggestion that my employer has done me any wrong. It's absolutely normal for a word to have two different meanings in two different contexts. "Drive" means one thing when I'm talking to the IT guy about my new laptop, another thing on my guitar pedalboard, and a third when we're getting in the car to go camping. No native speaker of English, including Richard Stallman, finds this at all confusing. Last night a singer said to me, "The bridge is the hook, let's repeat it before the last verse". Nobody thought she was trying to trick me into becoming a pirate and driving to work the wrong way (look, I just maliciously tricked you into thinking that my car is a signal-processing device).
If somebody refers to me as a "creator" of code, or of songs, are they really trying to trick me into thinking I have divine powers? Is that even imaginable?
No. People just like the sound of these words, the same way many younger suburban northeastern American white people seem to like to say "y'all" and "on the regular".
I haven't heard code described as "content", ever (unless in the sense of a MIME content type), but there are a lot of things I haven't heard, so I'll let that one pass.
As somebody said in comments, this is just "Stallman being Stallman". He's a well-known controversialist and gadfly in the field of computer programming. He wears funny colorful clothing and says colorful things to get attention. Exhibit A above. The disingenuous literal-mindedness game he's playing is common to computer programmers and baby-boomer political hippies; he's both.
His net contribution to the field has been massively positive in my view, and his self-promotion has been part of that. You don't have to like the guy to appreciate the immense value of what he's done. But that's another subject.
The only thing interesting here is the irony: Stallman and the folks waving the 1984 flag are deliberately misrepresenting the meanings of these words.
add a comment
|
This is an interesting example, because Stallman is talking tendentious nonsense. There are many cases in this world where language is misused with intent to deceive, but none of the examples he gives are anything of the kind.
In modern North American English, when we call a creative person a "creator", we all agree that we mean they create something, usually intangible, usually for pay: They draw pictures, or write poems, or computer programs, or songs, or some such. There is no implication at all that the person is a god, or god-like, in any way. Literally nobody on this planet actually believes that, nobody in this discussion, nobody anywhere -- with the possible exception of Richard Stallman, who's a professional controversialist. It's quite possible that he believed it while he was saying it. I suppose it's even possible that he believes it still. But Richard Stallman doesn't have the authority to redefine the English language for the rest of us.
Likewise, in Cambridge, MA where Stallman has lived for decades, if you say "compensation" in any context remotely job-related and nobody had mentioned a lawsuit, people assume you're talking about how much they get paid (source: Eleven years living in Cambridge and Somerville and working at software startups around town and on Route 128. Also, a dictionary).
More importantly: If these terms were somehow inaccurate, exactly who would be misleading who, and in what way? Where is the "deception" here? If somebody refers to my salary as "compensation", are they trying to deceive me into believing I've been damaged or injured in some way by showing up at the office (or the asteroid mine)? Does that even begin to make sense? It's quite accurate to say that work costs me time I could be devoting to something else, but there's no suggestion that my employer has done me any wrong. It's absolutely normal for a word to have two different meanings in two different contexts. "Drive" means one thing when I'm talking to the IT guy about my new laptop, another thing on my guitar pedalboard, and a third when we're getting in the car to go camping. No native speaker of English, including Richard Stallman, finds this at all confusing. Last night a singer said to me, "The bridge is the hook, let's repeat it before the last verse". Nobody thought she was trying to trick me into becoming a pirate and driving to work the wrong way (look, I just maliciously tricked you into thinking that my car is a signal-processing device).
If somebody refers to me as a "creator" of code, or of songs, are they really trying to trick me into thinking I have divine powers? Is that even imaginable?
No. People just like the sound of these words, the same way many younger suburban northeastern American white people seem to like to say "y'all" and "on the regular".
I haven't heard code described as "content", ever (unless in the sense of a MIME content type), but there are a lot of things I haven't heard, so I'll let that one pass.
As somebody said in comments, this is just "Stallman being Stallman". He's a well-known controversialist and gadfly in the field of computer programming. He wears funny colorful clothing and says colorful things to get attention. Exhibit A above. The disingenuous literal-mindedness game he's playing is common to computer programmers and baby-boomer political hippies; he's both.
His net contribution to the field has been massively positive in my view, and his self-promotion has been part of that. You don't have to like the guy to appreciate the immense value of what he's done. But that's another subject.
The only thing interesting here is the irony: Stallman and the folks waving the 1984 flag are deliberately misrepresenting the meanings of these words.
This is an interesting example, because Stallman is talking tendentious nonsense. There are many cases in this world where language is misused with intent to deceive, but none of the examples he gives are anything of the kind.
In modern North American English, when we call a creative person a "creator", we all agree that we mean they create something, usually intangible, usually for pay: They draw pictures, or write poems, or computer programs, or songs, or some such. There is no implication at all that the person is a god, or god-like, in any way. Literally nobody on this planet actually believes that, nobody in this discussion, nobody anywhere -- with the possible exception of Richard Stallman, who's a professional controversialist. It's quite possible that he believed it while he was saying it. I suppose it's even possible that he believes it still. But Richard Stallman doesn't have the authority to redefine the English language for the rest of us.
Likewise, in Cambridge, MA where Stallman has lived for decades, if you say "compensation" in any context remotely job-related and nobody had mentioned a lawsuit, people assume you're talking about how much they get paid (source: Eleven years living in Cambridge and Somerville and working at software startups around town and on Route 128. Also, a dictionary).
More importantly: If these terms were somehow inaccurate, exactly who would be misleading who, and in what way? Where is the "deception" here? If somebody refers to my salary as "compensation", are they trying to deceive me into believing I've been damaged or injured in some way by showing up at the office (or the asteroid mine)? Does that even begin to make sense? It's quite accurate to say that work costs me time I could be devoting to something else, but there's no suggestion that my employer has done me any wrong. It's absolutely normal for a word to have two different meanings in two different contexts. "Drive" means one thing when I'm talking to the IT guy about my new laptop, another thing on my guitar pedalboard, and a third when we're getting in the car to go camping. No native speaker of English, including Richard Stallman, finds this at all confusing. Last night a singer said to me, "The bridge is the hook, let's repeat it before the last verse". Nobody thought she was trying to trick me into becoming a pirate and driving to work the wrong way (look, I just maliciously tricked you into thinking that my car is a signal-processing device).
If somebody refers to me as a "creator" of code, or of songs, are they really trying to trick me into thinking I have divine powers? Is that even imaginable?
No. People just like the sound of these words, the same way many younger suburban northeastern American white people seem to like to say "y'all" and "on the regular".
I haven't heard code described as "content", ever (unless in the sense of a MIME content type), but there are a lot of things I haven't heard, so I'll let that one pass.
As somebody said in comments, this is just "Stallman being Stallman". He's a well-known controversialist and gadfly in the field of computer programming. He wears funny colorful clothing and says colorful things to get attention. Exhibit A above. The disingenuous literal-mindedness game he's playing is common to computer programmers and baby-boomer political hippies; he's both.
His net contribution to the field has been massively positive in my view, and his self-promotion has been part of that. You don't have to like the guy to appreciate the immense value of what he's done. But that's another subject.
The only thing interesting here is the irony: Stallman and the folks waving the 1984 flag are deliberately misrepresenting the meanings of these words.
edited May 30 at 13:24
answered May 29 at 16:19
Ed PlunkettEd Plunkett
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1766 bronze badges
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There's always that gem from Churchill;
"terminological inexactitude."
This is often used to say someone is lying, but also means exactly what it says; being inexact in one's terminology, or using misleading words, or words intended to mislead.
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There's always that gem from Churchill;
"terminological inexactitude."
This is often used to say someone is lying, but also means exactly what it says; being inexact in one's terminology, or using misleading words, or words intended to mislead.
add a comment
|
There's always that gem from Churchill;
"terminological inexactitude."
This is often used to say someone is lying, but also means exactly what it says; being inexact in one's terminology, or using misleading words, or words intended to mislead.
There's always that gem from Churchill;
"terminological inexactitude."
This is often used to say someone is lying, but also means exactly what it says; being inexact in one's terminology, or using misleading words, or words intended to mislead.
answered May 29 at 6:58
RedSonjaRedSonja
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7875 silver badges13 bronze badges
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I'm a fan of bamboozle:
to conceal one's true motives from, especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end
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I'm a fan of bamboozle:
to conceal one's true motives from, especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end
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I'm a fan of bamboozle:
to conceal one's true motives from, especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end
I'm a fan of bamboozle:
to conceal one's true motives from, especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end
answered May 28 at 19:08
Joshua KadenJoshua Kaden
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Why not euphemism?
From Greek euphemismos "use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one.”
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Why not euphemism?
From Greek euphemismos "use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one.”
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Why not euphemism?
From Greek euphemismos "use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one.”
Why not euphemism?
From Greek euphemismos "use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one.”
answered May 29 at 10:54
yrodroyrodro
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1622 silver badges9 bronze badges
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In addition to George Orwell, I would like to mention political consultant Frank Luntz. During the last two decades he has become the poster boy for the strategy of methodically crafting vocabularies to frame the political discourse to the benefit of your side. Here are some examples of political neologisms attributed to him:
Death tax (instead of estate tax)
Climate change (instead of global warming)
Government takeover (of healthcare)
Energy exploration (instead of oil drilling)
I have seen terms such as luntzism, luntzian or luntzspeak used to refer to this type of neologisms, but I don't think any of them have caught on. These words would probably only be understandable by people who are familiar with Luntz.
I think Richard Stallman's objections to the words he mentions in parenthesis is not that he thinks people will misunderstand what they refer to, but that they will induce a certain way of thinking about the things they refer to, much like Luntz's phrases are designed to do.
George Orwell first wrote about something similar in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of
the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in
India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom
bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which
are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with
the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has
to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy
vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the
inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms
and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry:
this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of
the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed
if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of
them.
By his own account, Frank Luntz was heavily influenced by reading Politics and The English Language, but probably not in the way Orwell had intended.
add a comment
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In addition to George Orwell, I would like to mention political consultant Frank Luntz. During the last two decades he has become the poster boy for the strategy of methodically crafting vocabularies to frame the political discourse to the benefit of your side. Here are some examples of political neologisms attributed to him:
Death tax (instead of estate tax)
Climate change (instead of global warming)
Government takeover (of healthcare)
Energy exploration (instead of oil drilling)
I have seen terms such as luntzism, luntzian or luntzspeak used to refer to this type of neologisms, but I don't think any of them have caught on. These words would probably only be understandable by people who are familiar with Luntz.
I think Richard Stallman's objections to the words he mentions in parenthesis is not that he thinks people will misunderstand what they refer to, but that they will induce a certain way of thinking about the things they refer to, much like Luntz's phrases are designed to do.
George Orwell first wrote about something similar in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of
the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in
India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom
bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which
are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with
the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has
to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy
vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the
inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms
and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry:
this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of
the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed
if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of
them.
By his own account, Frank Luntz was heavily influenced by reading Politics and The English Language, but probably not in the way Orwell had intended.
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In addition to George Orwell, I would like to mention political consultant Frank Luntz. During the last two decades he has become the poster boy for the strategy of methodically crafting vocabularies to frame the political discourse to the benefit of your side. Here are some examples of political neologisms attributed to him:
Death tax (instead of estate tax)
Climate change (instead of global warming)
Government takeover (of healthcare)
Energy exploration (instead of oil drilling)
I have seen terms such as luntzism, luntzian or luntzspeak used to refer to this type of neologisms, but I don't think any of them have caught on. These words would probably only be understandable by people who are familiar with Luntz.
I think Richard Stallman's objections to the words he mentions in parenthesis is not that he thinks people will misunderstand what they refer to, but that they will induce a certain way of thinking about the things they refer to, much like Luntz's phrases are designed to do.
George Orwell first wrote about something similar in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of
the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in
India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom
bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which
are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with
the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has
to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy
vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the
inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms
and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry:
this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of
the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed
if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of
them.
By his own account, Frank Luntz was heavily influenced by reading Politics and The English Language, but probably not in the way Orwell had intended.
In addition to George Orwell, I would like to mention political consultant Frank Luntz. During the last two decades he has become the poster boy for the strategy of methodically crafting vocabularies to frame the political discourse to the benefit of your side. Here are some examples of political neologisms attributed to him:
Death tax (instead of estate tax)
Climate change (instead of global warming)
Government takeover (of healthcare)
Energy exploration (instead of oil drilling)
I have seen terms such as luntzism, luntzian or luntzspeak used to refer to this type of neologisms, but I don't think any of them have caught on. These words would probably only be understandable by people who are familiar with Luntz.
I think Richard Stallman's objections to the words he mentions in parenthesis is not that he thinks people will misunderstand what they refer to, but that they will induce a certain way of thinking about the things they refer to, much like Luntz's phrases are designed to do.
George Orwell first wrote about something similar in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of
the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in
India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom
bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which
are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with
the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has
to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy
vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the
inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms
and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry:
this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of
the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed
if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of
them.
By his own account, Frank Luntz was heavily influenced by reading Politics and The English Language, but probably not in the way Orwell had intended.
answered May 29 at 19:13
jkejjkej
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I'm not sure if you're looking for a verb meaning "to use misleading words" or if you're looking for a noun referring to the misleading words themselves or the act of using misleading words.
Either way, consider an adjective: Disingenuous
disingenuous (adj). Lacking in candor. Also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness: CALCULATING.
(From Merriam-Webster online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld)
While I'm not finding this (explicitly) in any dictionary definitions, I'm also used to "disingenuous" carrying a connotation of being manipulative or sneaky.
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I'm not sure if you're looking for a verb meaning "to use misleading words" or if you're looking for a noun referring to the misleading words themselves or the act of using misleading words.
Either way, consider an adjective: Disingenuous
disingenuous (adj). Lacking in candor. Also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness: CALCULATING.
(From Merriam-Webster online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld)
While I'm not finding this (explicitly) in any dictionary definitions, I'm also used to "disingenuous" carrying a connotation of being manipulative or sneaky.
add a comment
|
I'm not sure if you're looking for a verb meaning "to use misleading words" or if you're looking for a noun referring to the misleading words themselves or the act of using misleading words.
Either way, consider an adjective: Disingenuous
disingenuous (adj). Lacking in candor. Also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness: CALCULATING.
(From Merriam-Webster online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld)
While I'm not finding this (explicitly) in any dictionary definitions, I'm also used to "disingenuous" carrying a connotation of being manipulative or sneaky.
I'm not sure if you're looking for a verb meaning "to use misleading words" or if you're looking for a noun referring to the misleading words themselves or the act of using misleading words.
Either way, consider an adjective: Disingenuous
disingenuous (adj). Lacking in candor. Also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness: CALCULATING.
(From Merriam-Webster online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disingenuous?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld)
While I'm not finding this (explicitly) in any dictionary definitions, I'm also used to "disingenuous" carrying a connotation of being manipulative or sneaky.
edited May 29 at 23:09
answered May 29 at 21:40
Randall StewartRandall Stewart
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See also all the references here on 'obscurantism'
– Mitch
May 28 at 13:43
The duplicate is not well titled, but OP there states "... this is not meant to be about politics but strictly language usage".
– Edwin Ashworth
May 30 at 13:49
1
People not agreeing with you about what words to use is not "dishonesty".
– Acccumulation
Jun 6 at 14:39