Weasel word
The American English term weasel ( - ) word denotes a word with a vague and fuzzy meaning. In the United States , the term became known through Theodore Roosevelt , who used it in 1916 to attack Woodrow Wilson's policies :
“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 ; it has sucked all the meaning out of universal . The two words flatly contradict each other. "
“You can have extensive training or voluntary training , but if you restrict the word comprehensive with the word voluntary , you are using a weasel word ; it sucked the actual meaning out of the word comprehensive . The two words simply contradict each other. "
According to Friedrich August von Hayek , weasel words would be used as an attribute if one had to use the accompanying term but wanted to take away all secondary meanings that questioned one's own ideological premises. He describes the word “social” as “the weasel word par excellence”, which nobody knows what it actually means in terms such as “ social market economy ” or “social conscience ”. “Equality” and “freedom” are also very similar weasel words that are often used : Who or what exactly is equal to whom or what exactly, and in relation to what? Who exactly is free of what exactly, and free for what exactly?
The term "weasel word" comes from the fact that the weasel is said to be able to suck all the contents out of an egg without being noticed afterwards when the shell is empty. So the weasel words are those that, when added to a word, rob that word of all content and meaning.
See also
While one as empty words designated word is empty of content already own, causing the weasel word that is meaningless beside him standing words and phrases.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Christoph Gutknecht : Lauter Bohemian Villages: How the words got their meaning . 7th revised edition C. H. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-45989-7 , pp. 84–86 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ Friedrich August von Hayek : Collected writings in German language. Volume 7: The fateful presumption. The fallacies of socialism . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-16-149949-4 , p. 132 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ “We owe the Americans a great enrichment of the language through the characteristic expression weasel-word. Just as the little predator, which we also call a weasel, can supposedly suck all the contents out of an egg without noticing it after the empty shell, so the weasel words are those which, when you add them to a word, create that word deprive of all content and meaning. I believe the weasel word par excellence is the word social. Nobody knows what it actually means. It is only true that a social market economy is not a market economy, a social constitutional state is not a constitutional state, a social conscience is not a conscience, social justice is not a justice - and I'm also afraid that social democracy is not a democracy. ”- Friedrich August von Hayek : Wissenschaft und Sozialismus . In: Collected writings in German: Dept. A, essays; Vol. 7. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-16-148062-7 , p. 61 f.