Unspeak.

[Don't Tread On Me]

http://www.slate.com/id/2158035/nav/tap2/

LexiconUnspeak

The Devil's LexiconUnspeak exposes the language twisters.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Monday, Jan. 22, 2007, at 5:09 PM ET

Unspeak by Steven PooleUnspeak, writer Steven Poole's term for a phrase or word that contains a whole unspoken political argument, deserves a place in every journalist's daily vocabulary. Such gems of unspeak, such as pro-choice and pro-life, writes Poole in the opening pages in his book Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality, represent an attempt to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak—in the sense of erasing, or silencing—any possible opposing point of view, by laying a claim right at the start to only one choice of looking at a problem.

Pro-life supposes that a fetus is a person and that those who are anti-pro-life are against life, he writes. Pro-choice distances its speakers from actually advocating abortion, while casting "adversaries as 'anti-choice'; as interfering, patriarchal dictators."

Poole's list of suspicious phrases rolls on for more than 200 pages. Tax relief and tax burden, which covertly argue that lowered taxes automatically relieve and unburden everybody. Friends of the Earth casts its opponents as enemies of the earth and implies that the Earth is befriendable, a big, huggable Gaia.

Poole cautions readers not to confuse unspeak with doublespeak, a word that grew out of the concepts of Newspeak and doublethink that George Orwell introduced in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Poole writes, "But Unspeak does not say one thing while meaning another. It says one thing while really meaning that one thing," and the confusion unspeak generates is almost always calculated and deliberate.

Poole calls community one of the most perfect political words in English because it can mean several things at once, or nothing at all. It can conjure things that don't exist, and deny the existence of those that do. It can be used in celebration, or in passive-aggressive attack. Its use in public language is almost always evidence of an Unspeak strategy at work.

The plasticity of community allows it to encompass geography, ethnicity, profession, hobby, or religion, and in the mouths of diplomats and journalists can expand to include everybody, as in the international community, a concept that Justice Antonin Scalia once described—rightly—as "fictional."

We're drawn to the "semantically promiscuous" word, Poole writes, because it allows us to simultaneously express our tolerance for a group and our discomfort. For example: the homosexual community and the black community. People rarely refer to the heterosexual community, the white community, or even the Christian community, because in the United States and Britain, they are the "default" positions and carry the "privilege of not having to be defined by a limiting 'identity.' " Likewise, a group defined by the majority as transgressive, say, the Ku Klux Klan, would never qualify as a "community" even though it organizes itself with the same conscious effort as the "anti-war community."

Unspeak concurs with my position that journalists everywhere reject the word reform because it's become meaningless. He assails the Tories in England who spoke of "bogus asylum seekers" because the phrase destroys any presumption of sincerity, and served as code for "simple racism." When governments speak of a tragedy, they imply that the bloody results of their work were unforeseen—as if visited upon man by the gods—and nobody can be blamed. Surgical strike conveys the benevolent practice of medicine, ridding a target of its disease. Collateral damage redefines the death of innocents as injury. Smart weapons posit the opposite of dumb weapons that kill indiscriminately. Daisy cutter sanitizes the killing power of the daisy-cutter bomb. Weapons of mass destruction, which earlier referred to the horrific mechanized tools of warfare being stockpiled in the 1930s, now applies to biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons when possessed by nonsnonstateors or regimes in disfavor.

Unspeak usually flows from the lips of politicians, but news organizations are equally inventive. Poole quotes a Fox News Channel executive who instructed reporters to refer to U.S. "sharpshooters" in Iraq instead of U.S. "snipers," because snipers was negative. The same Fox News sought to substitute "homicide bombers" for "suicide bombers" because "suicide" gave too much prominence to the attacker.

Poole asks how the war on terror can exist when it's almost impossible to wage war on a technique; he recoils at the euphemism of detainee abuse, which minimizes physical and psychological violence; and punctures those who dress their acts in the cloths of democracy, freedom, and liberty.

Other suspect phrases and words that Poole takes his cane to: intelligent design. Sound science. Security fence. Regime change. Extremism. Moderate. Coalition forces.

Unlike George Lakoff, who lectures the Democratic Party about the importance of "framing" political debates in order to win them, Poole dismisses this tactic as fighting unspeak with unspeak, as the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" schools demonstrate. Quoting linguist Ranko Bugarski, Poole maintains that what's needed is "judicious use of normal language, allowing for fine-grained selection and discrimination, for urbanity and finesse," even though "normal language" is already subject to unending political debate.

As the channel through which politicians, activists, and corporations market their words, reporters are usually the first recipients of new examples of unspeak. Monitoring how they say what they say is as important as reporting precisely what they say. As Poole notes, resisting unspeak isn't quibbling about semantics. It's attacking the "chain of reasoning at its base." Making sense of nonsense is 90 percent of what being a journalist is about. To forewarn readers about unspeak, Poole advises, is to forearm them.

Folks, I've been preaching this for a while. Language is KEY. We should no longer call the issue "gun control" which implies that guns can/should be controlled. They should always be referred to as "anti-second amendment" movement...which actually describes what they are. "Gun-grabbers" is pretty good, but not very articulate.


There are literally dozens, if not hundreds of these instances in our cause. For example, stop using the term "high capacity magazines"...there is no such thing. Their capacity is exactly what the creator/designer of the firearm intended them to be, which makes them standard capacity magazines if you had to use a term. Magazines made to comply with bans are reduced capacity magazines.... By using the word "high" implies that it is extra, superfluous, above and beyond, or extreme..more than it should be, more than it normally is. As if you're a blood thirsty barbarian that wants to inflict over-kill or something.


Also, there is NO SUCH THING as an ASSAULT WEAPON, this term was purely fabricated by anti-rights groups!!!! Further more, 99.9% of us do not OWN nor BUY assault rifles!!! Assault rifles are fully automatic rifles such as the AK-47 and M16. We own, use and buy semi-automatic sporting rifles. End of story. They use our own language against us. I know it's cool for a lot of people to think of their rifle as an assault rifle since it is similar in ways to the real thing, much like how a milsurp lover loves his rifles because they have that authenticity about them -- but, it does no one any good to use such language like "assault"....when referring to a sporting autoloader.


I can't emphasize enough how much of a detriment this terminology is to us in the battle over moderate America. We can definitely discuss various terms and phrases here on THR, and if we make an effort to use them, they will spread - believe it, it will spread. It is amazing how a slang word gets used once on a forum, and within a month goes cross the web and becomes widely used. Just the members of THR, using better terms for our cause and getting into the habit of it can cause a huge impact on the gun community....and once they start getting it, it may start slowly leaking into the politics.


Look at the media. Even the most pro-rights articles on firearms use terrible terms. That's because that's all the journalist knows of the issue, and the pro-second amendment groups who officially deal with news and media rarely use better language themselves.


That should change. You guys are smarter than me, list some bad uses of language in our struggle and post them in this thread. It can make for an interesting discussion......

 

[Biker]

Great post! Now ya got me thinking...that's not always a good thing.

Biker

 

[ccarnel]

Great post!, from now on I will make changes in my own speech that reflect the above.

 

[Bob M.]

Politically Correctness

Check this out..It's in .PDF format.

http://gunlaws.com/pdf/PC'd_Glossary_New.pdf

 

[geekWithA.45]

Related topic.

The phenomenon of "shorthand" speech, wherein a word of phrase is presumed by the speaker to carry with it a set of commonly understood underpinnings is often the cause of online controversy, when one party to the discussion is unaware of those underpinnings.

It happens here all the time.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

Bob, great PDF!! I've seen a primitive version of that years ago on his website, I see Alan has beefed it up quite a bit.

That's exactly what I'm talking about, but I'm sure we can get even more precise and more effective.

A good technique for formulating good phrases or terms is to clear your mind, and call something exactly what it fundamentally is. It is harder to do than you think. We're so immersed in all this propaganda speech, it's almost second nature.

 

[Alex45ACP]

In 1984, they called it "Newspeak".

Definitions are important.

This is why I refer to "gun control" as victim disarmament, and "anti gun" as anti recognition of gun rights or anti self defense. Call it what it really is.

 

[Library Guy]

Sometimes we bite ourselves

I have to disagree with one point. “Assault Rifle” is not an invention of the anti-gun crowd.

Back in the 1980s when the A-team and Miami Vice were bringing exotic firepower to the TV, the gun journals couldn’t write enough about military style semi-autos. More than once Guns & Ammo ran a special “Assault Rifle Round Up” article or special "Assault Rifle Buying Guide Issue."

Of course these weren’t real assault rifles. But the journals used the term to sell issues and by extension the guns themselves. And for awhile, it was a very profitable marketing strategy.

It wasn’t long before the anti-gun crowd latched onto the term and has never let go. But it wasn’t their marketing geeks who used it first.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

No, I meant "assault weapon" is a term invented by the anti-gun lobby.


That was their creation, and was intentional since it prevents the use of the argument that semi-auto sporting rifles are not assault-rifles.


By doing that, they invented a new term, and by inventing a new term, they could then define which firearms belong to this new term. The new firearms are semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, pistol grips and whatever other arbitrary features they choose to use or whatever standards they apply.

 

[DHard3006]

Library Guy : I have to disagree with one point. “Assault Rifle” is not an invention of the anti-gun crowd.

If I recall it was coined by Hitler when he saw the Mp44.

 

[ZeSpectre]

Wow, talk about timely. I was just having a discussion with some of the VCDL guys about importance of careful wording with regards to public image. This illustrates my point with great eloquence.

One of my own favorite mantras... "Focus on the criminals, not the tools"

 

[Henry Bowman]

I'm afraid I have to call you on an unspeak of your own -- sporting.

We own, use and buy semi-automatic sporting rifles. *** -- but, it does no one any good to use such language like "assault"....when referring to a sporting autoloader.

I do not consider self-defense and tyrrany control to be a sport -- yet. "Sporting" carries the implication that it has a recreational, and therefore non-threatening, purpose. Some sports are good practice for real life uses. Some are not.

 

[armoredman]

Thanks for the PDF, forwarded, (as allowed in the article), to many people, will spread this as far as possible.
I agree with the term "sporting" being "off", that was introduced in GCA '68, with the Sporting Purpose clause, and all that related garbage.
Very good thread!

 

[gyp_c2]

yup...

...exactly and on point...

Say what you mean, went out the window with the bath water, baby and everythin' else...

Say...what I want you to think you think I said, but get something very different is what I want...right?

 

[ialevy]

I don't even like to use the word "handgun."

I prefer Pistol or Revolver.....

 

[cropcirclewalker]

I have one. I have one.

Managed Media.

Too many of youse guys use the term "Main Stream Media", which may be true, but the term Managed is more descriptive and accurate.

I have been using the term for years, but nobody notices.

Wise Up!

 

[Trebor]

Folks, I've been preaching this for a while. Language is KEY. We should no longer call the issue "gun control" which implies that guns can/should be controlled. They should always be referred to as "anti-second amendment"

I agree with you on the power of words. I've done marketing research, advertising and consulting and words have power beyond their dictionary defination.

We need to reframe the "gun control" debate. But, I don't think "anti-second amendment" is the right term. It's *almost* there, but there's still something off about it. It's a little cumbersome and a little academic/theoritical to be really effective.

Let's see if we can come up with something better. We're working on the idea that "gun control" is really about stripping civil liberties from individuals and leaving them unable to defend themselves. The phrase we pick really needs to resonate with people on an emotional level. It needs to be easy to say and easy to understation.

Instead of "gun control" we could talk about "violence control" or "violence reduction" strategies. That takes the onus off the law abiding gun owner and puts it back on the criminal and says the emphasis should be on reducing violence and crime.

"Crime control" would also be a way of restaging this topic.

I'm not sure if those are the way we'd want to go. We need something that expresses the violation of civil liberties inherit in "gun control." Hmmnnn...

 

[ZeSpectre]

Guns being inanimate objects any "control" applied really means controls on the user so...User control?

(oooh that sounds like brain washing nastiness now doesn't it, real close to mind control)

 

[Jeff White]

We need to stand up for a our Second Amendment Rights. Notice how the pro abortion movement is now referred to as the abortion rights movement in the media?

We need to get the public used to hearing the second amendment as a right.

Jeff

 

[gyp_c2]

well...

Anti Violence Emergency Rescue Tools...

 

[MatthewVanitas]

ASSAULT WEAPON, this term was purely fabricated by anti-rights groups!!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Digest-Book-Assault-Weapons-Fifth/dp/087341778X

Agree that "assault rifle" is a translation of a WWII German term, but gunfolks used to use the term "assault weapon" too, and apparently still do (see above book by those gungrabbers at Gun Digest)

I don't even like to use the word "handgun."
I prefer Pistol or Revolver.....

I like "sidearm".

Though I am amazed how many 1st-time shooters, on coming to the UT range and being offered a choice of "pistol or rifle" ask "which one is which?"

-MV

 

[ZeSpectre]

Check this out..It's in .PDF format. http://gunlaws.com/pdf/PC'd_Glossary_New.pdf

Got to put the "glossary" to use last night with a "gun bigot" (Unfortunately the friend of a friend). It was remarkably empowering and actually terminated the conversation pretty quickly. I was amazed that this person (who knows our mutual friend well but barely knows me at all) would open up so aggressively towards me with his anti-rights spew, but he did.

So with a return salvo of items from the glossary along with a straightforward and unapologetic statement to the effect of "of course guns can be dangerous, that's the entire point" soon had him looking for other people to chat with/spew to.

I still think the most startling thing about this was him coming up to an almost complete stranger and starting up about this.

 

[Baba Louie]

Can we request that Alan Korwin's "Politically Corrected Glossary" be incorporated into the THR Library? I think it a fine addition to the reference information contained therein. Thank you Bob M.

I often wonder how many of the people who lurk at THR (as of this moment, there are 363 members 1015 guests online) are here to gather useful information which bolsters their thinking either pro or con?