Weasel words are those squishy, defensive qualifiers beloved by, well, journalists.
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And the GOP isn't alone—the media frequently uses weasel words to describe clear racism.
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He used two weasel words — "I believe" — while making the "four embassies" claim to Ingraham.
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The government's proposals repeatedly invoked the two greatest weasel words in the modern lexicon: "transparency" and "accountability".
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" AggregateIQ insists it is a separate entity to Cambridge Analytica, but Wylie said these claims were "weasel words.
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Bravery in this context has been a readiness to take shelter in weasel words: you won't endorse the fellow but you will support him.
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He came in deciding to act like a frontrunner, using weasel words on tough questions about immigration and health care, and largely staying out of the fray.
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Ex-White House ethics chief Walter Shaub says Sarah Sanders' explanation of how much the administration knew about Rob Porter's abuse allegations and when they knew it is "weasel words." pic.twitter.
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But even though all are described in the script as "beautiful" with no weasel words or provisos, it is Akim (Níke Uche Kadri) who is recognized as the fairest of them all.
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If reports about a candidate talk about how something "raises questions," creates "shadows," or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.
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Some, clearly under pressure from their left-wing bases, have backed off those votes, using weasel words to explain why they are now planning to flip flop and cast votes against his confirmation as secretary of State.
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This is different from other politicians using weasel words or vague statements or recontextualizing something—Trump lies about everything from giving to charity to the size of the crowds he draws to whether American Muslims cheered on 9/11.
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After all, instead of calling it like it is, CBS News, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times have called Trump's comments about Curiel "racially charged" and "racially tinged," the weasel words the media typically uses to describe racism.
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You have to hope lawmakers are at least collectively not so stupid as to end up passing laws that attempt to outlaw math — even if individual politicians persist in the fantastical belief that the general public's security can be enhanced by weakening, er, the general public's security… Over in the U.K., draft legislation currently before parliament, aiming to expand intelligence and law enforcement agencies' surveillance capabilities, contains some weasel words on encryption — with a clause that comms providers should be able to "remove electronic protection" and provide legible user data in response to a lawful intercept warrant.
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Similarly, "weasel words" is a critical term for words or phrasing that are vague, misleading or equivocal.
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" Michaels was a hater of weasel words. William Baldwin (current Forbes editor) wrote "Jim had a novel idea. Why not speak to the reader as if you were speaking to a friend on a street corner? Brevity helps.
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A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. Examples include the phrases "some people say", "most people think", and "researchers believe." Using weasel words may allow one to later deny any specific meaning if the statement is challenged, because the statement was never specific in the first place. Weasel words can be a form of tergiversation, and may be used in advertising and political statements to mislead or disguise a biased view.
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Dorothy Porter, Health, Civilization, and the State, Routledge, p. 252: "...what the Americans liked to call 'socialized medicine'..."Paul Wasserman, Don Hausrath, Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak, p. 60: "One of the terms to denigrate and attack any system under which complete medical aid would be provided to every citizen through public funding."Edward Conrad Smith, New Dictionary of American Politics, p.
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The chief premise of the book is that everyday actions of humanity are neither consistently honest nor criminal, but rather weasel. He dissects the aspects of weasel behavior and explores its benefits and ramifications, sometimes referring to his own life experiences. The book is divided up into many sections and chapters which show different types of weasels, how to be a weasel, weasel words, and methods for countering the weasels you may encounter in everyday life.
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An exception to this could include a politician whose "weasel words" and obfuscation are necessary to gain support from multiple constituents with mutually exclusive conflicting desires from their candidate of choice. Ambiguity is a powerful tool of political science. More problematic are words whose senses express closely related concepts. "Good", for example, can mean "useful" or "functional" (That's a good hammer), "exemplary" (She's a good student), "pleasing" (This is good soup), "moral" (a good person versus the lesson to be learned from a story), "righteous", etc.
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The authors lament that an inverse relationship exists between an increasing scientific consensus regarding climate change, and a simultaneous increase in denial within the greater public about the same issue. The book identifies a corporate underpinning influencing public opinion by way of companies which derive profit from the fossil fuel industry. Washington and Cook write that politicians often use weasel words as a form of spin and propaganda, in order to act as if they are going to do something about climate change, while in actuality remaining passive on the issue. The authors go on to identify a greater level of denial — within the wider public itself.
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In this role, he wrote language textbooks, developed language courses, and wrote language guidebooks. While working as a professor of Romance Philology at Columbia University, Pei wrote over 50 books, including the best-sellers The Story of Language (1949) and The Story of English (1952). His other books included Languages for War and Peace (1943), A Dictionary of Linguistics (written with Frank Gaynor, 1954), All About Language (1954), Invitation to Linguistics: A Basic Introduction to the Science of Language (1965), and Weasel Words: Saying What You Don't Mean (1978). Pei wrote The America We Lost: The Concerns of a Conservative (1968), a book advocating individualism and constitutional literalism.
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" Other entries are specific references, such as "Socialism in Sweden," "Standard Oil Company, "Bryce's American Commonwealth," and "Northern Securities Case." Theodore Roosevelt was a great phrase-maker and coiner of terms, and most of his famous slogans, epithets, titles, sayings, and characterizations are listed in the Cyclopedia, including "lunatic fringe," "Square Deal," "malefactors of great wealth," "Big Stick," "muck-rakers," "Bull Moose," "nature fakers," "polyglot boarding house," "weasel words," "New Nationalism," "broomstick preparedness," and "strenuous life." A few others, however, are not in the Cyclopedia, such as "Ananias Club" (liars) and "bully pulpit" (the White House). Unfortunately, the editors made no systematic attempt to trace or indicate the origin and first use of a term or phrase.
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The authors assert that those denying climate change engage in tactics including cherry picking data purported to support their specific viewpoints, and attacking the integrity of climate scientists. Washington and Cook use social-science theory to examine the phenomenon of climate-change denial in the wider public, and call this phenomenon a form of pathology. The book traces financial support for climate- change denial to the fossil-fuel industry, asserting that its companies have attempted to influence public opinion on the matter. Washington and Cook write that politicians have a tendency to use weasel words as part of a propaganda tactic through use of spin, as a way to deflect public interest away from climate change and remain passive on the issue.
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Orwell chooses five passages of text which "illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer." The samples are: by Harold Laski ("five negatives in 53 words"), Lancelot Hogben (mixed metaphors), an essay by Paul Goodman on psychology in the July 1945 issue of Politics ("simply meaningless"), a communist pamphlet ("an accumulation of stale phrases") and a reader's letter in Tribune (in which "words and meaning have parted company"). From these, Orwell identifies a "catalogue of swindles and perversions" which he classifies as "dying metaphors", "operators or verbal false limbs", "pretentious diction" and "meaningless words". (See cliches, prolixity, peacock terms and weasel words.) Orwell notes that writers of modern prose tend not to write in concrete terms but use a "pretentious Latinized style" (compare Anglish).
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Compared to Bach's other chorale cantatas of the period, the unknown poet kept much of the original text, six of the eight stanzas, expanding two of them by recitative, to connect even closer to the Gospel. He paraphrased only stanzas 3 and 6 to an aria each. In the last aria, in a statement of opposition to rationalism—the "weasel words of rationalists, who would bring down the whole Lutheran theological edifice" in the words of John Eliot Gardiner—the poet expands the words of the reformers' hymn, "" (reason cannot grasp it), appealing to reason, described as unstable and frenzied, to be silent. Bach first performed the cantata on 30 July 1724, as the eighth chorale cantata of his second annual cycle.
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Such arguments frequently take the form of vague phrasing such as "some say," "someone out there thinks" or similar weasel words, or it might attribute a non-existent argument to a broad movement in general, rather than an individual or organization. A variation on the selection form, or "weak man" argument, that combines with an ad hominem and fallacy of composition is nut picking, a neologism coined by Kevin Drum. A combination of "nut" (i.e., insane person) and "cherry picking", as well as a play on the word "nitpicking," nut picking refers to intentionally seeking out extremely fringe, non-representative statements or individuals from members of an opposing group and parading these as evidence of that entire group's incompetence or irrationality.
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26 January 1995 He returned to this major Paris venue in July 1998 to conduct two concerts with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band to ecstatic reviews and high-profile TV coverage. A champion of new music, he has commissioned and conducted the first performances of Tim Souster's Echoes (Manchester/BBC Radio 3), Joseph Horovitz's Tuba Concerto (Nottingham Festival) and Andrew Powell's Falstaff: Theme and Episodes (Paris, Cité de la Musique), Chris Batchelor's Weasel Words & Winning Ways, Max Charles Davies's Trinity-Credo, Simon Dobson's Four Britten Sketches and Fanfare for Peter, Aaron Einbond's Floral Decorations for Bananas, Edmund Jolliffe's Breathe, Gabriella Swallow's Spit, Ivor Bonnici’s Three Movements for Chamber Orchestra and the UK premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Stockholm Diary, Robert Saxton's Sonata on a theme of Orlando Gibbons, Britta Bystom's Rebellion in Greenery, Wilfred Heaton's Healing Stream, Christopher Gunning's Wicken Fen Jacon Bride's Percussion Concerto and Sebastian Currier's Remix.
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Research has discovered[weasel words] that when girls have had an extended exposure to films in which female super heroes were dressed in over-sexualized costumes, they became more aware of their own body competence. This type of exposure can cause a detrimental view of female roles in the film industry. Research shows that within the 56 top-grossing films in North America, Scandinavia, Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, women and girls were four times more likely than men to be shown wearing revealing clothing; nearly twice as likely to be shown as partially nude; and four times more likely to be shown completely naked. The over-sexualization of female roles in popular Hollywood films has been found to have a negative effect on girl's self-esteem and can cause them to want to alter their bodies to look more like the actresses in films and movies.
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Prologue (Iste liber quem per manibus habemus vocatur Secretum Philosophorum.) Book I is nominally on ‘Grammar’ which ‘teaches us to write correctly’ (Grammatica docet recte scribere et recte loqui). Explaining that no-one can write correctly without the proper instruments, the subsequent text consists of technical recipes for the materials required ‘for correct writing’, plus some recipes for concealing meanings by the use of invisible ink and ciphers. Book I is thus in fact an artists' recipe book. Book I thus includes recipes for pigments, tempering, adhesives, varnish, writing tablets, artificial pumice and invisible ink, and for writing on metal by etching; many of these technical recipes are unique, rare, variant or unusually early witnesses to practices, or clarify obscure recipes in other treatises; the instructions appear to be for amateur use. Book I then ends with homilies on ‘correct speaking’ (discretion and the dangers of lying), taken from the pseudo-Aristotle Secretum secretorum, with a note on ‘weasel words’ for concealing meaning. Book II, ‘Rhetoric’ ‘teaches ornate speech’ (Rethorica docet ornate loqui).
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Although some journalists may assert their professional independence and integrity, and insist on producing an unbiased review, in other cases a writer may succumb to the pressure and pen a biased "puff piece" which praises the product or event while omitting any discussion of any shortcomings. In some cases, "puff pieces" purport to provide a review of the product or event, but instead merely provide peacock words ("an amazing recording"); weasel words ("probably one of the most important albums of the 2000s"; "Perhaps one of the leading bands of the 2010s") and tabloid-style filler which is peripheral or irrelevant to assessing the qualities of the product or event ("during the filming, there were rumours that romantic sparks flew between the two co-leads, who were often seen talking together on the set"). The financial relationship between the product company or entertainment firm and the reviewer is not always as obvious as a cash payment. In some cases, a small group of reviewers may be given an exclusive invitation to test-drive a new sports car or see a new film before it is released.
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