Originally posted by Padraig
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Pedants' Paradise
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This is a sticky topic.
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It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by french frank View PostInteresting to learn how usage overtakes one's personal experience....
What next?
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Originally posted by kernelbogey View PostOne thing that's next, I've been noticing recently, is the increasing use - almost popularisation - of neutral vocabulary to describe something unpleasant or immoral. It's doublespeak (and I can't remember whether that is Orwell or Huxley). I'm thinking of neutralise for kill, collateral damage ditto, situation emergency. They are euphemisms whose usage is designed to obfuscate, or to dull moral outrage. This thought was prompted by a police spokesperson in Sydney yesterday saying that the knife-wielding killer at Bondi Junction had no ideation - then clarifying by saying that means he wasn't a terrorist. (I'm sure he had some ideation.)
Or sometimes deliberate? Woke/wokeism has been taken away from its quite specific meaning to become what in many cases used to be covered(in the same derogatory sense) by the term political correctness.
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Originally posted by kernelbogey View Post'Even' is spreading as an intensifier, as in 'What does that even mean?', where it adds nothing to the substance of the question.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostI've noticed 'optically' emerging as a fashion-word. 'How's that going to look optically?' asks a presenter commenting on a government proposal.
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