{"id":36622,"date":"2016-05-06T12:48:19","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T11:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=36622"},"modified":"2016-05-09T08:51:22","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T07:51:22","slug":"jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-recognising-weasel-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2016\/05\/06\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-recognising-weasel-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Recognising weasel words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/12\/jeffrey_aronson.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-32935\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/12\/jeffrey_aronson-223x300.jpg\" alt=\"jeffrey_aronson\" width=\"75\" height=\"101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/12\/jeffrey_aronson-223x300.jpg 223w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/12\/jeffrey_aronson.jpg 446w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 75px) 100vw, 75px\" \/><\/a>To recap. A <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2016\/04\/29\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-weasel-words\">weasel word<\/a> is defined in the <em>OED<\/em> as \u201can equivocating or ambiguous word, which takes away the force or meaning of the concept being expressed\u201d.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_36628\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36628\" style=\"width: 143px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-36628\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2016\/05\/aronson_weasel_phrases.png\" alt=\"aronson_weasel_phrases\" width=\"143\" height=\"151\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-36628\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The late Alan Rickman playing Jaques in <em>As You Like It<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI can suck melancholy out of a song,\u201d says Shakespeare\u2019s Jaques in <em>As You Like It<\/em> (picture), \u201cas a weasel sucks eggs.\u201d The phrase \u201cweasel words\u201d was coined in the US at the end of the 19th\u00a0century, and used most famously by Theodore Roosevelt, criticising President Woodrow Wilson, to describe rhetoric that sounds as if it has substance but is actually empty of specific meaning, or is at best ambiguous and vague.\u00a0<!--more-->Whatever positive action is implied can later be denied. A weasel word is a single word that transforms a statement into weasel words, weasel phrases, or weasel sentences, by which the resultant rhetoric can be recognised and characterised.<\/p>\n<p>Weasels are often vague: \u201cfew people believe\u201d, \u201cmany people doubt\u201d, \u201cexperts say\u201d (how few? how many? what experts with what expertise?). Or they may be ambiguous\u2014for example, \u201cvalues\u201d (are they economic, political, or moral?) and \u201creform\u201d (which may be destruction or transformation). They may be undefined\u2014\u201cwork\u201d and \u201cchange\u201d\u2014or involve shifts in meaning: \u201ctrust\u201d (defined as \u201cthe recognition of a mutual purpose\u201d) and \u201cdialogue\u201d (which means not discussion but diatribe). Other weasels need no gloss: \u201cquality\u201d, \u201cexcellence\u201d, \u201cgovernance\u201d\u2014we\u2019ve all come to know what they mean, or think we have.<\/p>\n<p>Some short words make superb weasels. Like \u201cwe\u201d. Not much ambiguity there, you might think. But \u201cwe\u201d can be completely exclusive (the royal we, the authorial or editorial we) or completely inclusive (everybody). And in between are all shades of grey\u2014I, you and I, the cabinet, the government, Parliament, the country, the European Union, the United Nations, the world. The trick is to make the meaning slide ambiguously from sentence to sentence. Don\u2019t specify who \u201cwe\u201d is, and everyone feels included\u2014until they secede.<\/p>\n<p>Even \u201cthe\u201d is not exempt\u2014it is used to give verisimilitude to non-existent entities, such as \u201cthe international community\u201d. To refer to \u201cthe junior doctors\u201d implies that they are a homogeneous group with uniform views, which is not so, although on the matter of the contract with which they are being threatened they do seem to be exceptionally well united.<\/p>\n<p>Now incorporate your weasel words into weasel structures:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Use the passive voice instead of the active; this keeps the agent of the deed ambiguous. \u201cPatients are being deprived of proper care\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Make the subject of your passive construct a poorly defined noun; this adds vagueness. \u201cSome patients are being deprived of proper care\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Add vague adverbs: sometimes, often, perhaps, eventually.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Don\u2019t specify the timing: \u201cWe have no plans to privatise the NHS\u201d (no plans today; tomorrow we shall start preparing them).<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Juxtapose incompatible ideas: \u201cnot only economic dynamism but also social justice\u201d, \u201cnot only strengthening government but also devolving power\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Juxtapose undesirable extremes without specifying the alternatives: \u201cWe need neither old style dirigisme nor rampant laissez-faire\u201d (\u201cwe need new style dirigisme\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Use fallacious statements and non sequiturs: \u201cThe NHS is not working properly because doctors don\u2019t work hard enough at the weekends\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Claim that something is what it is not or is not what it is: \u201cIt was never the intention to impose the contract, merely to introduce it\u201d. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2015\/oct\/25\/nhs-medical-director-weekend-effect-hospital-deaths\">More people are dying in hospitals at weekends because of lack of staff<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the last case the weasel phrase, \u201cI assert that . . . \u201d is omitted. From such vagueness, ambiguity, and juxtapositions comes a powerful rhetoric, of which the Sophists would have been proud. Adapting Paul Johnson\u2019s observation in <em>Enemies of Society<\/em> (1977), in the sphere of politics the use of weasel words tends to be towards gross overstatement. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that George Orwell\u2019s real name was Blair.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Jeffrey Aronson<\/strong> is a clinical pharmacologist, working in the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford&#8217;s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is also president emeritus of the British Pharmacological Society.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong>\u00a0None declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To recap. A weasel word is defined in the OED as \u201can equivocating or ambiguous word, which takes away the force or meaning of the concept being expressed\u201d. \u201cI can [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2016\/05\/06\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-recognising-weasel-words\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5762],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jeff-aronsons-words"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . 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