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This blog contains effusive rhetoric and profligate diatribes. Read at your own risk.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Differently Labeled

George Carlin has a great bit about the tendency of American English to disintegrate into euphemisms over time, as confrontational terms are replaced with gentler alternatives which disguise the truth of the matter and lead to pretentious assumptions. As an example, he points out the replacements of terms like "crippled" or "handicapped" with "those in need of special assistance", "the differently abled", or even "the Physically Challenged!" As he is quick to remind us, changing the name of the condition doesn't change the condition; all it does is enable us to ignore it more easily. "The CIA doesn't kill anybody; they 'neutralize' people. The government doesn't lie, it 'engages in disinformation'. Poor people used to live in slums; now 'the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing'." Such evasions, he claims and I largely agree, only serve to disguise injustices, offer false comfort for true problems that would be better met head-on, and generally contribute to the climate of hypocrisy and neuroticism that is rife in America today.

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