Today's updates for the New American Newspeak Dictionary are:
Public diplomacy: propaganda
Politically correct: used to describe terms that are in fact, not politically corrrect, while using a politically correct euphemism
Misleading: not misleading; pointing out that the person making the charge is obfuscating, which is to say, misleading
Tendentious: not tendentious, pointing out that the person making the charge is being tendentious; the cry of the relativist, indignant at reality being described as reality
See Unspeak for discussion of "public diplomacy." It should be noted that Poole makes a distinction between newspeak and unspeak, where as I'm using "newspeak" in a more generic manner to create an umbrella category for the political misuse of language (which may itself constitute a bit of unspeak.)
For the other three, see this post by Glenn Greenwald, and marvel at Bill Keller's audacity to assert that those who call waterboarding torture are being "misleading", "tendentious", and "politically correct."
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3 comments:
Hi,
I think you meant 'contentious' rather than 'tendentious?
Nope, its "tendentious", since that was keller's exact choice of word. While he asserts that the Times is being objective by not calling waterboarding torture, it is instead advancing the position of the Bush administration, in other words, pushing their point of view.
The Greenwald article doesn't mention the word 'tendentious' but I see that Keller is quoted using the word in a blog post on nytimes.com. Sorry for the confusion on my part.
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