"The New Jargon" (an oldie & longish but worth a read if you missed it)

[foole]

...

Let us consider a few examples of the phenomena I am talking about.
This message was in response to my essay on the hate mail I've been
getting:

so, let's see. If we disagree with your spin and erroneous
conclusions, we are sending "hate mail"? my god, what hypocracy,
what insular thinking (and frnakly, I worry about using that last
word)

My problem with a passage like this, I repeat, is not exactly that
it is nasty, but that it is nasty in a stereotyped and cultivated way.
It is part of a technology of nastiness. Let's consider how it works.
Start with the first sentence. In the jargon, expressions like "let
me see if I've got this straight" are used to preface a distorted
paraphrase of an opponent's words. This is a matter of routine; it's
part of what a linguist would call the "phasal lexicon" of the new
jargon. In fact, "so, let's see" does two kinds of work: it prefaces
a distortion of what I said, and it pretends that the distortion
is what I said. It twists reason, and projects that twisting onto
me. I, of course, never said that everyone who disagrees with me is
sending hate mail. Never said it, never meant it, never implied it,
never presupposed it, never thought it.

...


http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.the.new.jargon.html

[arcane1]

1. sweet! Thanks! The site I frist saw this on is no longer available

and I didn't get to finish it the first time!

:toast: