Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
- Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
Theodore Roosevelt declared that the tendency to use what
have been called weasel words was "one of the defects
of our nation"'. 'You can have universal training or
you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word "voluntary" to
qualify the word "universal", you are using a weasel
word,' he said: 'it has sucked all the meaning out of "universal".’
Roosevelt was referring to the weasel’s ability to
empty the yolk of an egg without breaking the shell, making
it appear that the egg is untouched.
Weasel words are those terms or phrases used to create the
illusion of truth or to evade a direct commitment. They are
useful when the person using them is uncertain or has inadequate
information to give a clear answer or when one needs to say
one thing but means something quite different.
“It may seem likely that,” “The possibility
exists,” and “To a certain degree,” are
popular weasel words. “Perhaps, maybe, possibly, basically,
and realistically speaking,” are other offences.
“Everyone knows” and “It is common knowledge” are
weasel words used for persuasion. Taken to another level,
they become euphemisms (doublespeak), which describe offensive
behaviour in inoffensive terms. Political language consists
largely of euphemism and vagueness, think: pacification,
transfer of population, elimination of unreliable elements,
ethnic cleansing, collateral damage.
Expect to find weasel words wherever the official language
is a kind of code that, on surface, everyone must at least
appear to understand - or risk being excluded. It happens
in businesses and government departments, and today it is
found predominantly in advertising and marketing, government
and corporate PR ‘spins,’ and management ‘speak.’
Do these sound familiar?
Resource re-Balancing
Capacity release
Concrete and transparent
People Smart
Interlock
Change Management
Key Competencies
Assessing Improvement
Targeting Action
Performance Arenas
Target Audience
Organizational Imperatives
Talent Management
Demotivated
Virtuous Circle
Deep Insight
Value Creation
Delivering impact
Platform
Significant Impact |
Diversity Dimensions
Customer Experience
Customer Contentment
Turn Key
Business Paradigm
Optimum Outcomes
Action Item
All-New
Bottom Line
Client-Centered
Conceptualize
Content Provider
Deliverable
Cutting-Edge
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Resource Re-balancing or Capacity
Release? You better start
looking for a new job. Interlock? Company
workers for IBM are noted for using this expression, which
means “to
talk to” or “to connect with.” Targeting
Action? We see what needs to be done, but no action
is taken yet. Assessing Improvement? What
needs to be improved is being looked at. Demotivated? Unmotivated;
not motivated.
“
This is language without possibility,” writes Don Watson,
author of the Watson’s Dictionary of Weasel Words (http://www.weaselwords.com.au/)
and former script writer for former Australian Prime Minister,
Paul Keating. “It cannot convey humour, fancy, feelings,
nuance or the varieties of experience. This dead, depleted,
verbless jargon is becoming the language of daily life.”
Watson is concerned, as was George Orwell when he wrote
The Politics of English Language in 1946 (http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html). “Open
your mind and these ready-made phrases will just fall in,” Orwell
writes, “They will construct your sentences for you
-- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent
-- and at need they will perform the important service of
partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”
As a satire, Orwell rewrote a verse from Ecclesiastes:
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is
not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet
bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth
to them all.”
To:
“Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena
compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive
activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate
capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable
must invariably be taken into account.”
It is a joke, yet consider the following examples:
· X is the industry's most innovative brand. Each
visit is an opportunity to take part in an evolving story.
A story based on mathematical concepts that have contributed
to the most pleasing works of art and architecture the world
has ever known. Throughout the hotel, design elements appeal
to your passion, intellect and senses. Common areas encourage
interaction
with other guests, but also offer spaces of quiet solitude
where you can indulge in moments of high peace.
· Trust the Brits to turn their obsession with drinking
tea into a "turnkey b2b enterprise-level web-based tea
management solution infrastructure."
· On-the-ground presence, an American military expression
meaning 'soldiers with guns', was used in a pamphlet last
year by X to describe their customer service representatives
in country areas.
Read any newspaper, advertisement, political speech, business
and non-profit mission statements or objectives and you’ll
find thousands - up to the millions - of examples like these.
Is it possible to avoid weasel words? Of course it is. It
takes being more conscious about the words used to string
together the thoughts, ideas and opinions of which we read,
are subject
to listen to and which are our own.
For anybody whose business it is to communicate - and hopefully
the majority of us believe that it is! - it is best to ask:
1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image will make it clearer?
4. Can I say it more simply?
Do you have a comment or feedback on
this article? Email
us and let us know what you think.
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