Friday, 7 February 2025

Grammar: Euphemisms in Quotes Again

 



I did a LinkedIn search of my old middle-school peers to see where people had landed. Overall not great outcomes, but this was a lower-class school. The ones I remember being good-looking are real estate agents. (Looks don't matter? It's one of those things people say because they know the opposite is true. @barnabasdotexe)


The people who screech most about empathy are the worst at it. (@ArtemisConsort. Begs the question. Assumes that we all agree talking about empathy is suspect.)

All definitions are exclusionary. That's what they're FOR. To exclude everything that isn't denoted by the word in question. That way, when we use words, other people know what we mean by them. I can't believe we're even having to say stuff this obvious. (@ComradeHedgehog. One way of lying with words is to make definitions either too inclusive, or too exclusive.)

But perhaps the most common phenomenon that I associate with Zara elegance core is the idea of a “fashion evolution,” and the importance of a fashion journey that results in discovering your One True Personal Style (which is, almost always, some variation on Zara elegance core). Usually they post before and after videos from fashion influencers who began dressing in Zara elegance core after previously dressing “badly.” (CartoonsHateHer)

Every time you ask a Canadian why they like this country they say things like “So cultural over here... so tolerant and cosmopolitan – not bigoted...” etc, all SO untrue... What these people really mean is that they find more sympathetic queens in London than they did in provincial Canadian cities.
(Actor and comedian Kenneth Williams)

The word “rhetoric” now apparently means “statement or claim I dislike”.  David Burton-Sampson MP: “We sadly even hear rhetoric coming out of this place.” (“This place” being the House of Commons). I think rhetoric has been around in parliament for a while…?
(@yeppjane)

It is from 2014 but this is still code for "too white": "Pupils’ cultural development is limited by a lack of first-hand experience of the diverse make-up of modern British society" "...interacting at first hand with their counterparts from different cultural background..."
(@GhostOfOrwell84)

It's also disappointing that the likes of Kenneth Williams, Patsy Rowlands and Hattie Jacques have to contend with broader (read: more lowbrow) humour than before. (Imdb comment)

One big cultural progress is you don't hear people say "I like any music except rap and country" anymore. That always sucked, glad we moved on as a people. I presume nowadays people just say they don't like poor people directly. (@lastpositivist)

Have you ever considered that as we replace Christianity we just produce a cheap secular copy?
Confession: Counselling
Prayer/Penance: tons of meds
Fasting: Dieting
Confessor: Psychologist
(@BeSaintly)

Someone adds: pilgrimage: tourism, saints: celebs.

On the internet, "nobody talks about" usually means "I just now found out". (Phxsns1)

Trans rights activists call men not given access to female hospital wards “segregation”. They describe cheating men not given access to female sports as “banned from playing sports”. They call sterilising children “lifesaving healthcare”. (@Toby_1979)

The area I grew up outside Philadelphia was majority conservative but if you asked people their politics they’d say “libertarian”, “classical liberal”, “constitutionalist”, “old-school democrat”, “freedom lover”, “moderate left behind by the left”, and like nine other pseudonyms for just saying conservative. (@whatifalthist)

Iranian state media have used the phrase "hard landing" to describe the reported crash of the Iranian President’s helicopter. Hard landing is a phrase often used by authorities in Russia to describe incidents when aircraft crash. It is commonly used by the Russian Defence Ministry when reporting incidents with military aircraft... Analysts say the word "crash" is avoided by Russian officials due to fears it can cause upset or panic. This is called newspeak, and other examples include calling an explosion a “bang” and a death of a soldier “an unidentified absence from a military unit". (Will Vernon Reporting from Washington DC)

AITA? My brother claims it’s my choice to have my feelings hurt and this is his boundary that I need to respect. He’s mad that I won’t “find a compromise” and accuses me of black and white thinking. I feel like he is just grossly misusing therapy language – I don’t even know where to begin to explain that bigotry is not a boundary. (Reddit. She wants to bring her transitioning husband to visit her brother, wife and children.)

As we sit outside posh restaurant Pomus, “we watch the Saturday crowds shuffle by, visiting the likes of Peacocks and Subway”. (Tom Parker Bowles, Mail on Sunday. You can indicate a lot with a verb of motion.)
 

I love how blatantly “folksy demeanor” is elitist coastal poobah code for “can talk like those flyover country bumpkins”. (@ingelramdecoucy)

I just learned the professional way to say "I told you so": "This was identified early on as a likely outcome." (@woofknight)

"Train" is a euphemism for "remove the excuses not to use". (@ciphergoth)

The Telegraph giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. Whilst it's good that they're covering this topic, they repeatedly use "victim" instead of "complainant" when talking about non-crime hate incidents. (@ShazzBakes)

The way some of you use the terms “neoliberal” and “neocon” makes me think you’ve reanalyzed “neo” to mean “bad”. (@focusfronting)

I just wanted to ask the mayor if “pro women” means demanding that we all pretend some men are women. (@DuncanHenry78)

For those not paying attention. When a politician says 'LGBT' or 'Queer' they mean 'trans'. When they say 'trans' they mean male. (@jo_bartosch)

What's the difference between self-esteem and ego? (@tautologer. One's boo, one's hooray.)

"Public-private partnership" is largely a euphemism for crony capitalism, in the form of no-bid/cost-plus contracts, subsidies, bailouts and giveaways, usually to highly profitable monopolies and to Too Big to Fail. We The Public pay to develop or build it and bear the risk, they sell it back to us with outlandish profits. Socialize the cost, privatise the profit. No thanks. (@Empiricist871)

When you hear arts activists say “talent is a social construct” it means:
1. They believe that if a singer or painter has more talent than others, it “oppresses” people.
2. They believe that if they controlled the arts sector they could replace the talented with their own people.
(@MrEwanMorrison)

"I was arrested for my political views!" means "I was arrested because I said we should burn down a house of refugees". (@danwaterfield)

Actual sentence from a chapter I'm reading on the neuroscience of gender: "It is necessary to approach these studies understanding that the research was conducted under the contexts emerging from normative cisheteropatriarchal white European colonialist gender norms." (@jburgo55)

I think that means: "These studies didn't tell me the things I wanted to hear."
(@elizamondegreen)

To Nigel Farage, “growing up and being sensible” means “using many small nuclear reactors”


Shadow ed sec Bridget Phillipson says Labour will address gender issues “sensibly and calmly” or some such form of words. Translation: We will go on pretending men are women, the Emperor is clothed and there is a Santa Claus, Virginia.

We can’t talk about that because the debate becomes toxic.” Keir Starmer, paraphrase

So, it’s toxic for women to talk about the material reality of their sex class because it might remind people not of that sex class about reality? We are allowed to know what sex is, but we mustn’t mention it in case it hurts people’s* feelings? Thanks Keir. *only men are people. (@sleeepysandy)


The Centrist’s Prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the abuse women receive, the courage to label people condemning it as “woke”, and the wisdom to call it nuance. (@msediewyatt)

Is there anything that strikes fear and loathing into the heart of any decent upstanding Englishman more than the words 'Modernisation Committee'? (@CapelLofft)

Law firms specialising in “reputation management” (i.e. using libel law to shut down or intimidate journalists who are trying to expose their oligarch clients’ misdeeds). (@Ian_Fraser)

Variety magazine headline: Hollywood Storytellers Need to ‘Embrace the Change’ Driven by Tech Innovation (Translation: We want to make cheaper movies with AI. @tedgioia)

I have not seen nor heard the word colonialism used correctly since 1993. The metaphorical usage has wiped out the actual usage. (@PLazarinho)

Words you should never trust. 1. Consultation 2. Changing needs of students 3. Rethinking aspects of how we deliver our training. It's all code for the wrecking ball. (@amwilson_opera)

You don’t like punishments for schoolchildren? We’ve relabelled them “sanctions”.

Rather than the parents taking accountability and doing their own healing work which would allow the family system to transform, they hire a therapist to get the kid to adjust to the family system to fit better with the parents’ false selves. (He means “stop the bad behaviour”. They may even need to “get the appropriate help to address their relationship with alcohol”, ie “stop drinking”. @NickTaber)

Cowpat developments need to be rethought. (@samofsamshire. He means “banned”. A cowpat development is a close of executive homes dumped in a field without a bus stop, a shop, a school, a GP surgery, any open space.)

More here, and links to the rest.












No comments:

Post a Comment