Weasel words

I, however, am not....

Here's another one: Axis of evil

"Collateral Damage" : we hit an elementary school instead of the bomb factory.

I tutor English as a second language. My student from Poland wanted to know what "spin" means, in the political context. I tried and explaining and explaining. Finally, I said, "It's lying for your side." This he understood.

"Working vacation."

Unilateral damage
soft targets

ick

Yes, ick!

My least favorite weasel word is "issues", when used as a substitute for "problems". In my experience, the word is often used by corporate types as a way of denying the existence of problems of their own making. Example: what's meant is, "We've laid off (or "downsized", as someone already mentioned) so many employees, the ones who are left are so overworked they don't have time to do their jobs properly", but what's said is, "We have staffing issues".

I agree that the use of "issues" is over relied upon. But, guilty, of using it, for purposes of rushing through a message, and then only with people I'm relatively sure understand the shorthand referencial use of the word.

You're right, though, it can appear as insensitive, when, in fact, it's often used to just speed things through.

ANOTHER expression I find particularly puzzling is:

"I ran out of time."

AND/OR,

"I don't have the time."


Everyone's got the same amount of time, and time's all that we do have, at any one point IN TIME.

Someone writes/says either of those two things to me, I know that they're referring to *"issues"*.

Now, that was a joke.

Hello, bree! Nice to see you again.

Came acros the term "dirty bomb" yesterday ... How does this differ to an ordinary bomb, or a "smart" bomb?

When I was working, problems, screwups and various and sundry difficulties were always described as, "challenges".

One of my favourites, 'negative income' - that's the same as a loss, right?

============

Yeah, everytime I hear "flat tax," I laugh.

Next most laughable, in this area of contrarily strange expressions, is "Death Tax" (no such thing exists).

And, Oh, About Strange Expressions:
And, oh, about those strange expressions (the political interests area is a mine field, to be sure, of such), there's the most bogus and odd of all time:

"Faith based initiative."


Preposterous illusion of an idea.

Yep, HTB - could not agree more. Reminds me of that classic piece of spin from history: The Holy Roman Empire. It was none of those things.

Smart bombs are now called precision guided munitions. The old term made it sound like the others were dumb bombs.


Is this sensitive, or what?

msolga asks:



A dirty bomb is bomb that bomb (usually thought of as small, such as brief case,etc) that includes some radioactive matter with it. When the bomb is set off, there isn't a nuclear reaction but, instead, the radioactive substance is pulverized, mixed with dirt and blown into the air. This will case fatalities and other casualities outside the immediate detonation area. It will cause a long and expensive cleanup and create mass hysteria.

One of my favorite weasel words/phrases is "Compassionate Conservative" not to be out done by "Party of Inclusion".

At Microsoft there are NO bugs! Just "design side effects" or "undocumented features",