Weasel word

Weasel words is an informal term to describe an interplay between a writer or speaker (for the purposes of this article, referred to as the <author>) and the reader or listener (for the purposes of this article, referred to as the <audience>. 'Weasel words' describes this interplay as words and phrases that create an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said or written when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. However, the usually unspoken understanding of those who use the phrase and those who believe the distinction (for the purpose of this article, referred to as <users>), is that the <author> is always wrong to use them, and probably using them with malicious intent.

The use of weasel words is in fact governed by many more considerations than the attempt to deceive. For one thing, as the ratio between the <author>'s use of words designed to convey the whole truth and the number and substantiality of available facts to support what is being spoken or written increases, the greater the likelihood that the <audience> will perceive it as being weasel words. The availability of such facts is not necessarily in direct proportion to the number and substantiality of facts existing, either, as they may be difficult to obtain or unknown to the <author>. Thus, the integrity of the <author> is not discernible by their use of weasel words, but the common use of this phrase and the common belief in its usage are both to in agreement that it is. Thus it is a pejorative, inasmuch as the user of a pejorative is convinced that wrong is on the side of the target of their jibe. However, because the ratio above is not widely known, it is rarely the case that the <user> knows their argument is fallacious and does it just for spite, a common type of insult.

Using words in this way communicates vague or ambiguous claims, which the reader may be wise enough to discern. A malicious <author> will count as a victory the mere chance of the <audience> failing at this.

As a hypothetical, however true-to-life example, an advertisement may use a phrase such as "up to 50% off on all products". The audience may imagine that a trip to this store would be sure to yield a bargain, as many items are obviously reduced by the large percentage, but they would be making many assumptions that may or may not be true. A <user> would be wrong to say that these are dishonest words, as there is insufficient information to make that analysis. They may disdain the use of such a phrase as potentially misleading, but the fact of whether the <author> intended it to be so is not known. For example, the <author> in our example may decide that their budget can only allow 29 characters of ad space in the local paper.

The example now splits off into three paths. In one path is a store with many items on sale, most of them reduced in price by 50% or very near that. At the opposite extreme is a store with no items reduced at all. In the middle, is something between these two. In the first case, the <user> is now proved to be wrong; it is not merely possible that they are wrong. At the extreme, the <user> has their one and only chance to be proven right. This is obviously not only misleading, but was done with malicious intent. In the middle, well, it sort of depends on the observer, and the degree by which the merchandise deviates from an even spread from not reduced, to reduced by 50%.

The use of weasel words to avoid making an outright assertion is a synonym to tergiversate. Weasel words can imply meaning far beyond the claim actually being made. Some (Some was originally marked as a weasel word, this is an excellent example of a fairly benign weasel word, and of the person marking it as such of being an arse, or a prankster, or both. If someone wants to count the number of weasel words of this type, I would say, don't waste your time. I estimate it is roughly equivalent to the number of times I would revert a deletion of these parenthesized words; it is a very good example) weasel words may also have the effect of softening the force of a potentially loaded or otherwise controversial statement through some form of understatement, for example using detensifiers such as "somewhat" or "in most respects". This sort of softening of the blow is a useful social skill, and may be motivated by entirely good intentions. But we all know how that can turn out.

Origin

-A- This seems fairly likely to be a hoax, but it is fun, so leaving it in unchecked for now.

The expression weasel word derives from the egg-eating habits of weasels.

An article published by the Buffalo News attributes the origin of the term to William Shakespeare's plays Henry V and As You Like It, in which the author includes similes of weasels sucking eggs. The article also claims that this is a misnomer, because weasels do not have a mandible suitable for sucking eggs or blood.

Regardless of whether weasels in fact suck eggs, a belief that they do implies an egg shell devoid of its contents. Thus, words or claims that turn out to be empty upon analysis are known as "weasel words". The expression first appeared in Stewart Chaplin's short story Stained Glass Political Platform (published in 1900 in The Century Magazine), in which they were referred to as "words that suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks the egg and leaves the shell." Theodore Roosevelt attributed the term to Dave Sewall, claiming that Sewall used the term in a private conversation in 1879. Winston Churchill wrote: "The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning."

In the political sphere, this type of language is used to "spin" or alter the public's perception of an issue. In 1916, Theodore Roosevelt argued that "one of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use ...'weasel words'; when one 'weasel word' is used ... after another there is nothing left."

= Examples

All of these may be used by bad <authors> or good; the use of any of them is not prohibited on Anarchopedia. The more convincing authors want their arguments to be, the less they will use them.

Passive: Given in place of data. A census of everyone throughout time in the history of the Universe could determine whether this is true or not. Wikipedia uses the Notability standard, which is equally self-deceiving, elitist, all kinds of things. However, it does have the advantage of restricting information to a more manageable set, of information from people who have thought about such things. The <author> may be correct in their information, but where they got it will not be shown by this phrase. The most equivocal on this list:

• "Popular wisdom has it that..." (This could be an attempt to damn with faint praise, spoken by and speaking to those who know the fallacy of Argumentum ad populum, or it could be an example of pushing that same fallacy, or it could just be someone without the right citation or quote to hand, or it could just be a mistake)

• "People say..." (Which people? How do they know?)
• "It has been claimed that..." (By whom, where, when?)
• "Critics claim..." (Which critics?)
• "I heard that..." (Who told you? Is the source reliable?)
• "There is evidence that..." (What evidence? Is the source reliable?)
• "Experience shows that..." (Whose experience? What was the experience? How does it demonstrate this?)
• "It has been mentioned that..." (Who are these mentioners? Can they be trusted?)
• "Commonsense has it/insists that..." (The common sense of whom? Who says so? See "Popular wisdom" above, and "It is known that" below)
• "It is known that..." (By whom and by what method is it known?)
• "Officially known as..." (By whom, where, when—who says so?)

Could be right: Still missing data, but mentioning numbers makes it more obvious they are not there. Jimmy Wales would not like it but that is why I write here and not there. I want

• "Up to sixty percent..." (so, 59%? 50%? 10%?)
• "More than seventy percent..." (How many more? 70.01%? 80%? 90%?)
• "The vast majority..." (All, more than half—how many?)

Persuasive: Argument having been presented or about to be presented, the <author> either expects the <audience> to agree or, if they really are a bad <author>, is pushing them onto the bandwagon. The piece of information the <author> is missing is their entire argument; they may or may not have provided one. If they have, there is no need for this phrase, and if they have not, it hopefully won't be enough. These phrases are only obfuscation if they are associated with deficient arguments. In conjunction with good arguments they are a common social phenomenon, and they have very little chance of obfuscating the truth from the wise. The more interesting and relevant fact here is how they are perceived by an <audience> that prefers not to be convinced of the arguments they are associated with.

• "Clearly..." (It is declared that the premise is undeniably true. This is logically possible. The <audience> prefers very much that this is not so, or feels pushed, or is mature and wise enough to not care either way, having already decided from the argument, or suspending judgement until they see it)
• "It stands to reason that..." (Paranoid people will actually see this as an attack on their powers of reasoning, rather than using their reasoning to determine whether the logical arguments accompanying it (or not) are true)

Assertive: Given in place of being able to hypnotise the <audience> to believe what the <author> wants them to. This is a common mistake among inexperienced <author>s, who are not familiar with logical arguments and the search for facts to support them. There is a missing piece of information here: a citation.

• "Questions have been raised..." (Implies a fatal flaw has been discovered)
• "It turns out that..." (As a colloquial phrase, this one pushes the truth of the following argument more than most, by finishing the argument before evidence is even presented. As a storytelling device, it is a way of setting the stage, promising events to come. Very good example of a phrase that can trip up those suffering from paranoia induced by working too long at Wikipedia)
• "It was noted that..." (A commonly used start of a line by Auditors with poor workpapers or little evidence)

Deceptive: The worst. Undeniably inept or downright evil; you have to catch them saying which, and if they say inept, you still can't prove it, (see Alberto Gonzales). Advertising has gone on so long, it is hard to find people who even care anymore that they routinely lie. If advertising people ever knew (see Congenital liar) what truth meant, they either leave the profession or have it beat out of them by having to lie so much. People who see business as their own vested interest by financial or political association will throw a wobbly if you say anything bad about anything business-oriented. Advertising is stuffed as much as possible with as many deceptive phrases as will fit.

• "We are so confident you will like our product, we are giving away free samples" / -endorsement-"If they are giving it away, it must be good" (This is an example of a potential The Big Lie or Doublethink. The phrase attempts to push right past the fairly obvious suspicion that in fact the seller may have overstock of something that has to be sold to recoup a loss)
• "See why more of our trucks are sold in Southern California than in any other part of the country." (Southern California is a big vehicle market. This may also be pushing past the fact that this does not really mean anything, to confuse the audience into thinking "sell more...than any other brand" Or it may be an extreme form of Glittering generalities, or even just a mistake)
• "Best burger in the world." (The rationale for this sort of statement is that because everyone knows it is a lie, it does not matter. What?)

Forms

It is important that real examples do not in fact explain, at a later stage of the argument, what exactly is meant by "it turns out that"; the whole needs to be looked at before it can be decided that it is a weasel term. |salign = |source = }}

A 2009 study of Wikipedia found that most weasel words in it could be divided into three categories:

1. Numerically vague expressions (e.g. "some people", "experts", "many")
2. Use of the passive voice to avoid specifying an authority (e.g. "it is said")
3. Adverbs that detensify (e.g. "often", "probably")

Other forms of weasel words include:

• Non sequitur statements
• Use of euphemisms (e.g., replacing "firing staff" with "streamlining the workforce")
• Use of grammatical devices such as qualifiers and the subjunctive mood
• Vague generalizations

Generalizations and non sequitur statements

The vagueness of a statement may disguise the validity or the aim of that statement. Generalizing by means of quantifiers, such as many or better, and the passive voice ("it has been decided") conceal the full picture.

Non sequitur

The "semantic cop-out", represented by the term allegedly. which became something of a catch phrase on the weekly satirical BBC television series Have I Got News For You, implies an absence of ownership of opinion, which has a dual role either casting doubt on the opinion being articulated, or allowing an opinion to be expressed that the author does not wish to own up to.

Extrapolating

Extrapolating through the use of grammatical devices such as qualifiers and the subjunctive can be used to introduce facts that are beyond the proof of the cited work. This is a legitimate function of language, which resembles weaseling. When it is impractical to enumerate and cite many individual works, then the use of these grammatical devices conforms to the standards established by tradition. For example: "For scientists as for so many others, evolution served as an example of a fundamental challenge to long-held convictions".

Also rhetorically valid is the use of the neuter pronoun it and the adverb there as impersonal dummy subjects, as when an author intends to distance himself/herself from the work, or to separate one part of the text from another:

• "At the beginning, it was the train that was late."
• "It was a matter of total indifference that..."
• "After the end of the Californian gold rush, there were many ghost towns."
• "There are people who wash very infrequently."

The personal pronoun one, as a subject or an object in formal speech, that refers either to oneself or as a generalization to anyone in a similar situation, may also be used justifiably to distance a speaker from a subject.

• "One wonders what else was being discussed that evening."
• "What can one do in circumstances such as these?"

Passive and middle voice

The passive voice and middle voice can both be used in English to weasel away from blame. A passive construction occurs when the object of an action is made the focus of the sentence (by moving it to the front). In some cases, the agent (the subject in active voice, usually indicated by "by" in the passive voice) is missing altogether, as the sentence "mistakes were made by the politicians," for example, has been curtailed deliberately to "mistakes were made."

• "Mistakes were made."
• "Over 120 different contaminants have been dumped into the river."
• "It has been suggested that this article or section be..."

In the example: "Mistakes were made," the names of the persons who made mistakes is being withheld and the intention of weaseling is obvious.
In the "over 120 different contaminants..." sentence, a more precise number of "contaminants" might have avoided the impression of weaseling, even though we might never know who the "dumpers" were.
A related issue is the stylistic qualms held by linguists and teachers who discourage the passive voice being used too frequently. However, in the sentence

• "One hundred votes are required to pass the bill",

the usage of the passive voice is not necessarily connected with weaseling. The phrase, "100 votes are required to pass the bill", is probably a statement of fact, that it is exactly 100 votes that are needed for the passing of the bill, and it might be impossible to predict where these votes are to come from. For a statement to be a weasel expression, it needs other indications of disingenuousness than the mere fact that it is expressed in the passive voice.

Examples of weasel words using the middle voice are:

• "It stands to reason that most people will be better off after the changes."
• "There are great fears that most people will be worse off after the changes."
• "Experience insists that most people will not be better off after the changes."

Not all sentences using the middle voice are necessarily weasel words. The above sentence: "It stands to reason that most people will be better off after the changes", is clearly an instance of redundancy rather than weaseling. There is no need for "it stands to reason..." All that is needed is: "More people will be better off after the changes". What is relevant is what has been said before or is going to be said afterwards in the context of the discussion where the sentence occurs.

Style is another point more important in the discernment of the use of middle or passive voice. The above sentence: "There are great fears..." would have been better in the passive voice: "It is feared that most people will be worse off after the changes". The passive voice is the more logical choice here for the reason that this sentence would not stand on its own, but would occur in the course of a discussion. If the reasoning behind the sentence is so obvious within the discussion that it does not need substantiating by citing thousands of sources then the passive is perfectly alright.

In business

Weasel words may be used to detract from an uncomfortable fact, such as the act of firing staff. By replacing "firing staff" with "headcount reduction", one may soften meaning. Jargon of this kind is used to describe things euphemistically.

In certain kinds of advertisements, words are missing or withheld deliberately to deceive the buyer. Words such as more or better are misleading due to the absence of a comparison:

• "... up to 50% off." (How many items were actually decreased in price by half? The statement holds true even if the price of only one item is reduced by half, and the rest by very little.)
• "Save up to $100 or more!" (What exactly is the significance of the $100? It is neither a minimum nor a maximum, it just sits arbitrarily somewhere in an undefined range.)
• "... is now 20% cheaper!" (Cheaper than what? The last model? Some arbitrarily inflated price?)
• "Four out of five people would agree..." (How many subjects were included in the study?)
• "... is among the (top, leading, best, few, worst, etc.)" (Top 100? Best in customer service/quality/management?)
• "... for a fraction of the original price!" (This wording suggests a much lower price even though the fraction could easily be 99/100)
• "More people are using..." (What does that mean in numbers?)
• "Nothing Is Stronger/Longer Lasting/Safer." (How many are equally as strong/long lasting/safe?)
• "Lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks" (20 pounds of what? Water, muscle, bone?)

Articles and books

In Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt described astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek's report on the death of Air Force Pilot Thomas Mantell in pursuit of a UFO as "a masterpiece in the art of 'weasel wording'."

Carl Wrighter discussed weasel words in his best-selling book I Can Sell You Anything (1972).

Australian author Don Watson collected two volumes (Death Sentence and Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words) documenting the increasing use of weasel words in government and corporate language. He maintains a website encouraging people to identify and nominate examples of weasel words.

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, talks much about 'weasels' (conniving business people) in one of his books, named accordingly: Dilbert and the Way of The Weasel (2002)

See also

• Essentially contested concept
• Glittering generality
• Linguistic relativity
• Newspeak
• Political correctness
• Wooden language
• Weasel

External links

• Jason, Gary (1988) "Hedging as a Fallacy of Language", Informal Logic X.3, Fall 1988

• Weaselwords.com.au http://www.weaselwords.com.au/
• Unsuck-it.com http://unsuck-it.com/browse/

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