Still More Euphemisms in Quotes

The scriptwriter admits: “Sometimes you have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth.” (Guardian, 2020)

Agatha Christie’s grandson Matthew Pritchard says the estate's decision to franchise stories to filmmakers is "largely based on instinct"’. Director Vishal Bhardwaj says: “My effort is to create a new detective out of my film. I like the idea of two people who are not designated detectives but end up solving a crime. It's about the making of two detectives. The story will be true to Christie's soul if not her text." (BBC. Translation: complete travesty. But it’s a Bollywood version! Starring Alia Bhatt – pictured.)

Soviet-era euphemisms
rootless cosmopolitan: Jew
parasite: unemployed person
damage, sabotage: not working hard enough
bourgeois/reactionary pseudoscience: science that appeared to violate Marxist principles

sluggishly progressing schizophrenia: mental condition that causes the patient to oppose Soviet policies


OUR MINDS, OUR HEARTS, OUR SOULS
These are all from Dear Prudie at slate.com. It's just self-blaming with long, educated words.

I’ve consistently had unhealthy romantic relationships with men. A few years ago I stopped dating completely because of the toxic choices I made with romantic relationships. I’ve really worked on myself since then, especially on developing my self-esteem and steering away from self-destructive choices.

My current husband suffers from depression and anger issues that he takes meds for and gets counseling.

I realise that our sex life is something I’m going to have to work at, probably for the rest of our lives.

For the month prior to the holidays he had been struggling with depression, or so he said. Two days after spending the holidays with me and my family, he broke up with me alleging he needed time on his own to sort himself out and he didn’t want to drag me down with him. It’s been about a month and I just found out that “time on his own” really meant immediately starting to date a 21-year-old college student 12 years his junior from a different state that he met online gaming.

See also "I know his depression manifests as anger". And "hangover from previous relationships – has this wall up".

"Leave him, lovey, leave him." (Claire Rayner)


BLURBS (Via FB)
The literary version of estate-agent speak. (Anon)

avant-garde: There’s sex.
dated: No sex or swearing.
gritty: Every character is disgusting.
Title is the name of a species of bird: Child survives the Holocaust.
raw: Author is young but not photogenic.

Film listings
meditative: boring
surreal: nonsensical
complex: baffling
whimsical: infuriating
hypnotic/leisurely: soporific
stark: bit of a downer
bleak: a real downer
disturbing: avoid
devastating: avoid at all costs
(@CatJeffcoat)


Film critics:
(Sarah Harrison, 2010)
enchanting: There’s a dog in it.
heart-warming: A dog and a child.
heart-rending: They die.
thoughtful: Tedious.
haunting: Set in the past.
exotic: Set abroad.
prize-winning: Set in India.
perceptive: Set in NW3.
epic: Editor cowed by writer’s reputation.
in the tradition of: Shamelessly derivative.
provocative: Irritating.
spare and taut: Under-researched.
richly detailed: Over-researched.

Ways to say "I have no idea what you just said":
I see.
Leave it with me.
Haha, yes.
Okay great.
Interesting.
Right...
Certainly.
Say that again?
Is that so?
Blimey!
So funny!
Absolutely!
Can you put it in an email?
Yeah?
Definitely something to think about.
We'll see.
(Just smile and nod.)
(@SoVeryBritish)

To the women who are labelled:
Aggressive: Keep on being assertive.
Bossy: Keep on leading.
Difficult: Keep on telling the truth.
Too much: Keep on taking up space.
Awkward: Keep on asking hard questions.

‘Outspoken’ women made history, are changing the world now - and are our future. We need to keep being ‘outspoken’, until our words and ideas are just considered to be ‘spoken’, like men’s words are. ‘Outspoken’ is a misogynistic adjective for when women have an idea or opinion. (@DrJessTaylor)

robust: tell your staff they are worthless scum
direct: slap your team round the chops
challenging environment: 100s of terrified civil servants
sorry: I’m back and it’s gonna be even worse now.
(@davemacladd)


VIBRANT
Newsbeat, the Asian Network news team and parts of the data team will all move to Birmingham in what Davie described as “part of an exciting local plan for the region which includes the creation of a new, vibrant production hub”. (Pressgazette.com. The BBC is moving parts of its news operation from London to locations all over the country.)

Common-sense practices that allow for rapid-response mission, vibrant ad-hoc partnerships among persons and groups. (allianceofreformedchurches.org – they are splitting over homosexuality.)

After the new market development was done, there was such an optimistic buzz in the city that it was at last regenerating into a modern, happening city with charm and sophistication. (Letter in Hereford Times)


EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment is a "feeling" now. Not you know, going to university and assuming positions of power like men. (@GarosLal)

From my corporate days 'empowering' is up there with 'this is a development opportunity', at which point all you can do is feign death. (@mcdonnelljp. I add that it often means “You’re on your own”.)

BOO, HOORAY
The dancer’s simple, draped gown lacks heavy ornamentation and frills. (@FITfashionstory)

Autistic culture is being called a "little professor" with "intense passions" as a kid, only to be told you're a "know-it-all" with "immature obsessions" as an adult. (@autienelle)

In major policy reset speech, Liz Truss will hit out at “identity politics, loud lobby groups and the idea of lived experience” in a debate about a fairer society. She will unveil new approach to equalities based on “freedom, choice, opportunity and individual humanity and dignity”. (@LOS_Fisher, 2020)

Woke is the new Remoaner, isn't it? An all-consuming but ultimately meaningless insult. (@Otto_English)

A handout to the rich is called an "incentive" but an incentive to the poor is called a "handout". (@JamesMelville)

Cemetery owner @lb_southwark calls trees "scrub" when they want to cut them down. "Self-seeded" is another term of derision. (@SouthwarkWoods) 'Wasteland' and 'disused land' are also terms I detest. (@maggiem30026514)

Fetishising: It's one of those misused pseudo-Marxist terms, derived, I believe, from the theory of commodity-fetishisation, which predates Freud's use of the concept by many decades. (@LAZ_R_US)

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt suggested the NHS should do away with “stuffy titles”. (This is also begging the question – assuming that what you are trying to prove – NHS titles are stuffy – has already been proved

Partisanship is a word that signals bias, intransigence and polarisation. (@NoHolyScripture)

‘The struggle for socialism has entered a new phase’. That’s a wonderfully inventive euphemism for ‘catastrophic defeat’. (@PeteNewbon)

It’s suffused with the kind of corporate-Maoist exhortations you see in brochures for new estates: “Nature’s Arc: be part of it”. (George Monbiot in the Guardian on the new face of the Oxford to Cambridge “Arc” – a band of housing around an expressway. It has been cancelled, May 2021.)
 
WOKE
We need a term for the phenomenon where a useful word for something specific becomes a semi-useless vague term through overuse and imprecise usage – as happened to woke. (@theangelremiel)

So many people on my timeline using ‘woke’ as a pejorative. ‘Woke’ just means being aware of social injustice, esp racism and homophobia. Many misuse the word to delegitimise people simply seeking equality. In using it as a pejorative you are complicit. (@Botanygeek)

See also “politically correct”. These terms are commandeered and then mocked by people who don't like their unpleasant attitudes being exposed. (@lexiconmistress)

PATRIOTISM
Patriotism is the love of one's country, whereas nationalism is the belief in the primacy of one's country above all others.

I used to do this in one of my lectures on extremism - explain how patriotism is Good (pride and Shakespeare and maypoles), whereas nationalism is Bad (aggression and hatred and war). I then explained how patriotism is reactionary and aristocratic and Tory, whereas nationalism is progressive and civic and democratic. (Phil @DrSchwitters )

Isn't “patriotic education” a longer way of saying propaganda? (@colinmochrie)

COMMON SENSE
soft skills: Discipline, promptness, the ability to absorb criticism, and how to read people like a book. (Anthony Bourdain. See resilience, character, maturity and executive function.)

As a child, "common sense" was mostly code for "stop being so stupid and just agree with our world-view". (GC)

Ideology is what the other guy has. (Terry Eagleton. We have “common sense”, he adds.)

In October 2014, the Conservatives said that a British Bill of Rights would include the rights contained in the European Convention (so the same ones that are in the Human Rights Act) but also “restore common sense”. By this they meant putting tighter restrictions on the rights of various people, including foreigners who commit serious crimes in the UK, illegal immigrants claiming the right to family life and those claiming against the British Armed Forces for things that happened abroad. (rightsinfo.org)

“Common sense” is a subjective phrase that many people use when they can’t adequately explain or provide evidence for what they’re trying to communicate. (@steak_umm )

Also look for the word “clearly” in your opponent’s argument. It usually leads you right to their weakest point. (@glukianoff. Begging the question again.)

Similar phrases picked out by the Twitter hive mind:

Let me be absolutely clear: I have no evidence for what I'm about to say.
I tells it like it is: I am tactless, reductive and rude.
Time out! is essentially “Shut up!” (And so is "calm down".)
With all due respect: With the utmost contempt
Apolitical: I do not want my politics questioned or challenged.

We're straining every sinew: We're seeking any excuse for our shambolic fiasco and/or callous inaction".


EXPERIENCE
An August 2020 National Trust internal briefing document claims that the “mansion experience” is “out-dated”, and they will put many objects in store, sacking curators and running the properties as conference and wedding venues. “On a recent tour of National Trust properties, I was astonished by the illiteracy and idiocy of the public signs. Houses and gardens were plastered with error-strewn, patronising messages,” says the Spectator. “Dame Helen Ghosh even removed furniture from the Regency library at Ickworth House in Suffolk, temporarily replacing it with beanbags. She declared there was ‘so much stuff’ in Trust houses that it put everyone apart from the middle-classes off visiting; so exhibits had to be ‘simplified’.” It's a current trope that anything that appeals to the middle classes will put off everybody else – see Extinction Rebellion protests. The document hints at reducing opening times and instead making properties available to “people who are prepared to pay more” for “specialised experiences”... [Presumably exclusive events with high entry fees.] The paper, written by Tony Berry, one of its directors, proposes an “urgent” review of opening hours and the development of “new sources of experience-based income”, which does not rule out hen parties in a former duke’s home. (Times) Update: In a letter to the Times, NT CEO Hilary McGrady says her Ten Year Vision Document was intended merely to “provoke debate”. (Translation: I didn’t expect this much criticism from influential people. Or else: I only put forward this radical plan for dismantling the organisation so that people won’t really mind when I implement the still damaging, but less drastic, version I have up my sleeve.)

Instead, they will be used as “public space in service of local audiences”—or, in other words, venues for hire. (Dr Bendor Grosvenor, the Art Newspaper) The NT called this "flexing our mansion offer".

Sheffield Cathedral sacks its choir in order to make “significant change” to the “music offer of Sheffield Cathedral” and develop “a fresh vision for our worship”. (@WalkerMarcus. Probably means “amateur choir we won’t have to pay”.) Sheffield Cathedral said the choir’s sacking was to make way for “a completely fresh start”. The chapter had decided on “a new model for Anglican choral life here, with a renewed ambition for engagement and inclusion”. The Dean said church music was sometimes “presented in a way that can be seen as elitist”. (Guardian. Translation: “difficult stuff that can only be sung by the musically gifted and trained”. Or perhaps just “congregation can’t join in”.) 

More here, and links to the rest.