Two formerly perfectly good words of which I’ve become heartily sick…
…are “dialogue” and “conversation.”
Unfortunately, the left has turned the first into Orwellian Newspeak for I will harangue you for your failings as a member of a privileged or doubleplusungood group and you will sit there and listen respectfully without defending yourself, and the second into we are going to talk about some leftist agenda/issue that’s been talked about a thousand million times before but I’m claiming we need to talk about it some more in the guise of the aforementioned dialogue (see first definition).
Now, let’s have a conversation about that.
#MeToo !
Or has that already been used?
No “dialogue”.
No “conversation”.
No “sharing”.
Just say, “No”.
And to all those wildly delirious folks out there who’ve been nodding knowingly while gleefully watching lives destroyed, and harboring, with near-religious expectancy, perfervid hopes and technicolor dreams of a glorious slam-dunk outcome (the verdict having already been decided long ago)—to quote the incomparable Travis Bickle: “Suck on this!”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/eight-days-in-may.php
“reach out” (well, it’s a phrase) and “diversity”
Michael, I can’t decide which one I dislike more. They are both pet peeves. Along with the misuse of bring and take.
Back in the sixties Esalen was the hotspot for the human potential movement and Esalen encounter groups were cutting-edge. Then Esalen decided to provide an encounter session between whites and blacks…
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At the experimental Esalen Institute retreat in California, famous for cultivating the human potential movement, a workshop billed as “Racial Confrontation as Transcendental Experience” highlighted how wrong this approach could go. In the late 1960s, organizers brought together black and white radicals in one room, ostensibly to strip away social pretenses and let them interact as individuals who could openly express, and thus transcend, their innermost racist feelings. Within minutes, the two groups were in each other’s faces, screaming with rage and frustration.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/self-help-gurus-like-tony-robbins-have-often-stood-in-the-way-of-social-change/2018/04/13/15340974-3e70-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html
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The summary is misleading. The participants didn’t immediately go racist on each other. The leaders, particularly the black leader, were actively goading that response:
“Century Of Self” @ 2:09
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qs4aNiI_bA
When I first watched this, I didn’t realize the outspoken black was a leader, not just an obnoxious participant. He was psychiatrist, Price M. Cobbs, who had also written a book, “Black Rage.” Brutal.
Esalen tried the experiment a few more times, but nothing productive emerged. Esalen put a good face on it, then moved on to a more tractable group to liberate — Catholic nuns. Success! Esalen succeeded in destroying that convent.
Agreed about “dialogue” and “conversation”. And I’ll add a minor gripe: the associated substitution of “around” for “about”. As in “conversations around gender stereotyping.” Makes me snarl for some reason.
BTW, “Century of the Self” is a documentary about the influence psychology, starting with Freud and his forgotten but very important nephew, Edward Bernays, had on the 20th Century. It’s from a leftist POV but covers the ground well from Freud to Tony Robbins.
“Century of the Self” (full documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s&t=340s
“I will harangue you for your failings as a member of a privileged or doubleplusungood group and you will sit there and listen respectfully without defending yourself” [Neo]
Sounds like every mandatory diversity/harassment seminar ever presented.
Agreed on the definition for “dialogue” and “conversation.” It’s one-way only.
And how about “give back?” It makes it sound like someone has stolen something which needs to be returned, not a generous gift.
No “sharing”. — Barry Meislin
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Whenever I hear the word “share” I would reach for a gun if I had one. “Share” is frequently followed by the word “feelings”, and I have enough of my own thank you; please do us both a favor and repress yours.
— Stewart Brand
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Which is a variation of the famous Nazi quote (not exactly translated), “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.” Brand knew that, of course.
I have grown to hate the word “vibrant.”
Harangue. Exactly. Stay on message, and keep repeating until most of the people believe the message most of the time.
Amen, Neo. I also cringe when I hear, “robust” and “lens.” Robust is just way over used and lens has become an excuse for folks holding non-factual opinions; shorthand for, “my truth.”
My pet peeves: The misuse of “impact” as a transitive verb in place of the perfectly good “affect” (as in “Tomorrow’s storm will impact the early-morning commute”); the journalistic replacement of the noun “request” with “ask” (as in “He should have made a bigger ask”); and the overuse of “embrace” to refer to everything from accepting the outcome of a corporate planning session to proposals for increasing faculty diversity at the local high school.
Whenever I hear (or see) these abuses of my native language, I reach for my culture.
Also ‘working with’ which seems to be a combination of ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’ leading to the result wanted by the left.
Phillipa,
Regarding “bring” and “take,” those were almost always used incorrectly in my old neighborhood. Apparently we are famous among linguists for misusing “borrow” and “bakery.” We refer to baked goods as, “bakery,” and borrow people money, rather than loan it to them. I’ve had linguists tell me those misuses are unique to a 2 mile square section of Chicago I happen to hail from. My guess is this has something to do with direct translations from either Czech or Polish.
One would never ask for a loan. “Will you borrow me five dollars?”
Why not just go back to the beginning and object to the appropriation of the good word “Gay?”
Yes, whenever I hear “impact” being used as a verb, my teeth start to throb with pain. (It’s practically Pavlovian.)
“Dialog” used as a verb is almost as painful (for my right index finger—and I don’t think it’s my arthritis).
Seems that “Irritating Usage for Dummies” has become a best seller.
https://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Doodah-George-Lee-Walker/dp/0395407265
I get exasperated with “pour” instead of “pore” and “reign” instead of “rein.” It seems I see the wrong word more often than the right. I fear we will lose the proper forms at the current rate.
Also “tow” instead of “toe.”
Liberalism is divergent. Progressivism is monotonic. Conservativism manages perturbations. Principles matter. Feminism is female chauvinism. Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature. We’re not kids anymore, reconcile. Gay is a quasi-gender, homosexual is a gender attribute (e.g. sexual orientation), is a color in the transgender spectrum (a.k.a. “Rainbow”). Gay was happy and carefree. Black hole is not black whore. Diversity is a color judgment including racism. Pro-Choice/abortion is a summary judgment, and a cruel and unusual punishment of a what is logically and practically a wholly innocent human life. A Planned fetus/baby is the elective (i.e. premeditated) aborted fetus/baby, and perhaps a cannibalized colorful clump of cells, too. Euphemisms are, apparently, forward-looking statements of intent.
Yes, yes, there is a need to have a National Conversation about [pick your topic].
But the ground rules for conversing have already been determined, and the Leaders of the Conversation get to yank the microphone from a participant if there’s any chance said participant is caught peering beyond the boundaries of the Leaders’ Overton Window. And oh yes — the conclusion of the Conversation has already been determined (or else!).
Happy conversing!
Somebody should make a glossary. Oh, wait …
The left-speak glossary is not bad.
Reach out
Arguably, “dialogue” and “conversation” are synonyms for “negotiate”… yes?
When dealing with ideological fanatics who have no intention of keeping to any agreement they might make, I favor this form of “negotiation”.
Oh, and “viable”… In Stork They Trust. For the rest of us, there is a man, a woman, Nature and conception.
Barry wrote, “Yes, whenever I hear “impact” being used as a verb, my teeth start to throb with pain. (It’s practically Pavlovian.)”
From
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impact
impact verb
im·?pact | \ im-?pakt \
impacted; impacting; impacts
Definition of impact (Entry 1 of 2)
transitive verb
1a : to fix firmly by or as if by packing or wedging
b : to press together
2a : to have a direct effect or impact on : impinge on
b : to strike forcefully
also : to cause to strike forcefully
intransitive verb
1 : to have an impact —often used with on
2 : to impinge or make contact especially forcefully
“narrative”
“fraught”
A: We should dialog [or have a conversation] about topic X.
Me: Dialog [or conversation] means that you will listen to me as much as I will listen to you. It also means that you will attempt to understand what I’m actually meaning as much as you expect me to understand you. It also means that we both will avoid labeling or name-calling the other, but will instead deal with meanings an processes. Do you agree?
A: Of course.
Me: OK. I’ll let you go first for a minute or so. What’s on your mind?
A:
Me: OK, my turn. You’ve covered quite a bit of ground. Let’s first limit it to the first [label] you used. You said (e.g.) “Trump is a racist.” A racist is always looking at race as a means to define a situation. Trump appears to me to look at situations without regard to race. He is an anti-racist. I can think of no examples where he has tried to judge based upon race, but a number in which he has made judgements on situations. [Several provided.]
—-
That’s usually as far as it gets: A usually leaves, sometimes quietly, sometimes noisily. But . . . at times a dialogue at least gets started for a bit.
Post 9/11, the United States has yet to have a national conversation on whether its political leaders overreacted to the threat of terrorism. You would think that our involvement in two simultaneous wars that lasted longer than any other previous war in the country’s history might have prompted us to reflect on how we got into that position.
That hasn’t happened. We just…moved on.
–Keith Kloor “America’s Priorities” March 20, 2012
http://www.keithkloor.com/?p=8376
Keith Kloor had a science blog with a lively crew of commenters including moi. At the time it mostly dealt with climate change. He was a cut above most liberal bloggers in that, although Kloor had standard liberal positions, he allowed conservatives and skeptics to have their say.
From my first response:
KK: But you have no interest in conversation. You skip right to your conclusions that implicitly deride any other viewpoints.
It is also untrue that there has been no national conversation. There was debate after 9-11, debate throughout Bush’s term, and some during Obama’s term.
We went back and forth for a while. He just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact there had already been a lengthy conversation. The problem was the conversation didn’t end the way he thought it should have. Ergo, there had been no conversation.
He still has a blog but he doesn’t allow comments anymore. I guess it’s easier to have a “conversation” that way.
“The problem was the conversation didn’t end the way he thought it should have. Ergo, there had been no conversation.” – huxley
So, your dialogue didn’t grow the conversation?
Mike K on February 14, 2019 at 4:37 pm at 4:37 pm said:
Why not just go back to the beginning and object to the appropriation of the good word “Gay?”
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If you could get me a time machine, I would spend my one & only trip on that project.
Rufus T. Firefly on February 14, 2019 at 4:10 pm at 4:10 pm said:
…
One would never ask for a loan. “Will you borrow me five dollars?”
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And if you don’t get the dough, that’ll learn ya!
You can add the word “queer” to the “gay” category. One of my favorite poems is “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. The new meaning of the word “Queer” ruins that poem .
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening
Fixed it for ya. *g*
.
UNO: “Blog.” Never before has there been such an unsightly, ungainly, downright ugly foisted onto the English language. It can only be a portmanteau word meaning a “slimy bog.” I refuse to commit the sin of using it.
2. The abduction and torture of the word “gay,” a most useful and engaging word, meaning, roughly, “happy, cheerful, carefree” or else “brightly colored and attractive.” I refuse to use it in any other sense. GO MIKE K., at 4:37! :>)
3. No matter what anybody says, “impact” does not mean and never has meant “effect.” Not even a “substantial” effect. I refuse to use the word unless I mean something like “the impact of the 18-wheeler as it hit the guard-rail was so severe that it broke through, and fell into the icy waters of the Orinoco.” Or something.
(Per online Etymology Dictionary, the Latin stem includes this meaning: “insert, drive in, fasten.”)
PA Cat, yes, “The snow will
impactaffect tomorrow’s commute [another horror, but English has become famous for not distinguishing among parts of speech].”4. Downright illiterate formations from truncated stems, as for instance “conservatism.” Bless n.n. above at 5:17, who quite properly used the word “Conservativism.” One properly speaks of a ceramicist, not a “ceramist.” Of a “supremacist,” not a “supremist.” Of a “physicist,” not a “physist.” Etc. etc., ad nauseum ad infinitum. The first of these graftings into an agonizingly amputated stem to come to my notice, back when T. Rex was terrorizing the populace referred to the doctor who is called an “internist.” NO. An “internist” would be one who studies interns (I hardly see how one would practice interns); the correct term would be to call the doctor of internal medicine an “internalist”: one who studies, or practices, internal medicine.
5. Especially ugly words: “Robust” (how about “strong,” “sturdy”?) and “obese.”
6. Any number of words whose past participle is used as if it were the simple past tense. Drink, drank, drunk ~ shrink, shrank, shrunk ~ sink, sank, sunk; also, sing, sang, sung; swing, swang, swung; also bring, brang, brung, which had already been partially weakened when I was in high school, to “bring, brang/brought, brought” and is now generally conjugated as a weak verb, “bring, brought, brought.”
There is also “strive, strove, striven,” which has become weak: “strive, strived (!), strived.” But we still say, “drive, drove, driven,” thank the Great Frog. And I am starting to see professional writers who write monstrosities such as “he shined a light on the blood-spattered wall.”
7. I am not bothered by “conversation” as such, but I’m sick of hearing everybody on all sides talking about how “we” (that is, we Americans) “need to have a conversation/debate/dialogue about X.” Nobody says this unless WE have already been discussing it for years. (See also AesopFan above at 10:23 p.m.)
I think it’s interesting how many of us have our verbal dislikes in common.
Bless everyone who cares about words! “>))
And thanks for bringing it up, Neo. I’ve been positively seething with a need to tell everybody just exactly what I think about the foregoing for most of my adult life! (And even so, I’m quitting now, though I have still more chips to throw at my pet verbal hates….)
Please correct typos, missed words, etc. as you read; Edit is AWOL at the moment. E.g.: “blog,” “downright ugly word foisted….”
South of the border, the lefties also do “dialogue,” and in the same manner that lefties do it here. Here is an example from Gustavo Petro, the losing and lefty candidate in the 2018 Colombian Presidential election, commenting on a “vote” in Venezuela. Gustavo Petro Tweet on the July 30 2017 “vote” on a Constitutional Assembly in Venezuela.
As anyone who has followed Venezuela knows, there is no “dialogue” possible with Chavismo. The July 30, 2017 “vote” on a National Constituent Assembly was rather good evidence of the futility of “dialogue” with Chavismo. The opposition won two thirds of the seats in the December 2015 National Assembly elections. Maduro didn’t want dialogue with the opposition, so came up with the National Constituent Assembly as a way to bypass the National Assembly.
Smartmatic, the company that provided the election hardware and software for Venezuela, stated there were “at least” a million fraudulent votes in the July 30, 2017 “vote,” but Gustavo Petro made no comment about THAT contribution to “dialogue.”
Some of the replies to the tweet indicated that Gustavo Petro’s photo of crowds of people standing in line waiting to vote was not taken that day. I don’t know the answer on that, but I DO know that Gustavo Petro tweeted an example of a fully stocked grocery store to show that reports of empty grocery shelves in Caracas were false. If you click on the far left photo of that tweet to enlarge the photo, you can see the name of the store- Aponte. Aponte supermarkets are in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Gustavo Petro: Entre a un supermercado en Caracas y Miren lo que encontré? Me habrá engañado RCN? (I entered a supermarket in Caracas and look at what I found! Was RCN(colombian network) fooling me?) Somone who would claim that a supermarket photo from the DR or PR was taken in Caracas is perfectly capable of posting a false crowd photo.
Mistah Safire — he dead.
huxley, you been visiting The Hollow Men again? :>))
In Venezuela they learned that, for the Socialists, dialogue is only called for when the Opposition has momentum. After the dialogue, they can go back doing whatever they want to and ignore any promises or commitment made. It is nothing more than a stalling tactic without an ounce of good faith.
How about “sustainable”? Yecchh.
Ladies and gentlemen do not enter into any conversations with scoundrels.
huxley, you been visiting The Hollow Men again? :>))
Julie near Chicago: No, I was just missing William Safire and his column “On Language,” which made one think about language and its changes.
If there is anyone now “pouring” over current usage, encouraging people to “tow” the line on conventional grammar or at least “reign” in blunders and excesses, I haven’t noticed.
Julie near Chicago on February 14, 2019 at 11:37 pm at 11:37 pm said:
“And if you don’t get the dough, that’ll learn larn ya!”
Fixed it for ya. *g*
Excellent.
Dialogue & Conversation are good words — but the PC-Klan don’t really want these.
Normal folk should be calling them out, as liars, when they refuse to hear others or attempt to silence those who disagree with their prior conclusions.
They don’t want what they say they want.
They want power to control you.
Had an in-law a few years back use “conversation” exactly as you describe it Neo: “I will harangue you for your failings as a member of a privileged or doubleplusungood group and you will sit there and listen respectfully without defending yourself”.
After he said “I’m glad we had this conversation”, I said something about it being more of a monologue than a conversation.
Lucky me! that in-law does not talk to me any more. Yea!
charles
Lucky me! that in-law does not talk to me any more. Yea!
Was that a consequence of you having pointed out that his “conversation” was better described as a monologue?
Julie near Chicago on February 14, 2019 at 11:37 pm at 11:37 pm said:
Your #6: Ya gotta dance with the guy what brung ya.
I don’t think we will win the verb-shifting battle. Irregular tenses are just too hard for people who have never actually seen them used in print.
Perish the thought that a college education included reading.
Stealing from a comment at Hoyt’s blog, about jobs: You could make it today with an 8th grade education, but you won’t get one even after 4 years in college.
Roy Nathanson on February 15, 2019 at 12:54 am at 12:54 am said:
In Venezuela they learned that, for the Socialists, dialogue is only called for when the Opposition has momentum. After the dialogue, they can go back doing whatever they want to and ignore any promises or commitment made. It is nothing more than a stalling tactic without an ounce of good faith.
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Like Palestinian calls for a cease-fire so they can negotiate with the Israelis, when their only goal is to take a break from being pounded and re-arm.