The Dictionary of ????????

Picked up an interesting little book titled The Dictionary of Bullsh*t by Nick Webb (www.ananovabooks.com).

It is very funny.

I will reproduce the blurb on the back of the book here:

Without language we cannot think. But for most of us that won't pose a problem, because these days no one has a 'problem'. Instead, we have 'issues', possibly 'opportunities'. If we are unlucky we may even face 'challenges'.


Bullsh*t comes in many forms. A lot of Bullsh*t is just plain lazy, some of it is in code and much of it is merely absurd or fun.
From the political credibility gap (aka lying), to the oxymoronic instant classic, whether you're in a paperless office or have been outsourced, the Dictionary of Bullsh*t is an all-out offensive against all that is phony, stupid or just plain meaningless.

Moral content and personal responsibility have drained out of such Bullsh*t - just one of the reasons why it's so appealing shifty politicians and senior execs in expensive suits. Fluent bullshitters can sneak their way of seeing the world into our mental processes. This dictionary defines Bullsh*t from the many areas where it flourishes. Business, politics, self-help, marketing, the media, statistics, science and local government are all rich sources.

Serious and subversive, shamelessly opinionated and amusing, The Dictionary of Bullsh*t is the first of its kind. It's an essential field guide for all those that want to keep their Bullsh*t detectors in fighting trim.

bigshed,

Haven't read the book but from the blurb it seems b***s**t and George Orwell's "New Speak" have a great deal in common. George would have loved "friendly fire" to cite one example.
Some of the great exponents of b***s**t are naturally enough the ad men. Watched an ad for cosmetics in which the struggle to get around misleading the punter was fascinating. The cream "reduced the appearance of wrinkles." I know the flat frontal lighting did so but a cream? Either the cream reduced wrinkles or it didn't but the ad man couldn't be untruthful and so in Hillary Clinton's immortal words when she had to face the truth about dodging sniper's bullets, she "miss spoke" as did the advertising agency.

It is not actually b****s**t but the way Americanisms can mangle the language is amusing. I for one will not use the word "outage" when "failure" will do so much better. But failure is just what it says and outage tries to smooth over the obvious.

I know there are many who will argue language is living and subject to change, but do we really have to sink to the lowest common denominator?


Jerry


War does not decide who is right. War only decides who is left.

errors of judgment.........

(often a euphemism) Politicians will sometimes admit to errors of judgment. Nobody's perfect after all, and wouldn't we be unreasonable if we expected our leaders to be so?

There's an air of harmless abstraction about the phrase, as if one were wrangling over the merits of Raphaels' use of colour.
Tactically, politicians will put their hands up to confess to a lesser charge of an error of judgment if the alternative - corruption for example - is more damaging.

move on............

(cliche and v.) "We must move on....." is an expression uttered in tones of heroically suppressed irritation. The silly old public bangs on about our past delinquencies when the Promised Land lies in the future.

Translation: forget everything, elect us again.

"Let it go . . . ."?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

move on............

(cliche and v.) "We must move on....." is an expression uttered in tones of heroically suppressed irritation. The silly old public bangs on about our past delinquencies when the Promised Land lies in the future.

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I'm not convinced - some say we get the pollies we deserve. Maybe this means there are as many ill informed, uneducated and foolish members of the silly old public who will not "let it go" when "it" is about as equally meaningless and irrelevant as the pollies "We must move on . . . "

Google ["on ????????"], with quotes to marry the keywords, for some of Prof. Harry Frankfurt's insights. Admirable gentleman, interviewed on "The Daily Show" about a year ago.

[replace the filtered element with you-know-what.]

Joe