“But he is so sincere, he must really mean it.” Those words are applied to politicians, lovers, abusive boy friends, people asking for loans, and many others who want us to believe them. Sometimes he really does mean it and sometimes he can even do what he says he will do. Sometimes the slower horse wins the race but that's not the way to bet.
The fact is that words are cheap. No matter how persuasive someone is, no matter how much we want to believe him, no matter how much he himself believes them, the words are meaningless if actions say something else. How many abused women take the guy back because he promises faithfully to change his ways? He almost never does. (Men can fall for that as well but women are the more common victims.) How often do politicians promise they will get spending under control, then turn right around and increase spending and the deficit?
We need only look at President Obama for an example. One day he emphasized the need to control deficit spending. Then the very next day he announced that he intended to subsidize building high-speed rail lines. Yes, those rail lines were already planned but you don't cut spending without, well, cutting spending.
More recently, yesterday in fact, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has claimed that Obama administration is paying more attention to deficit and spending concerns than the Bush administration did. Such a claim would not be very difficult to live up to since the Bush administration spent like crazy. Should we believe Geithner's words? Anybody who does will probably be interested in a good deal on this tower I know about in Paris.
The fact is that while administration officials are talking about deficit reduction, projections are that deficits will top a trillion dollars per year under Obama, compared to a $458.6 billion deficit in Bush's last year.
Believe the actions, not the words.
In other areas we should also believe actions, not words. The battered woman should ignore the sweet words and promises intended to lure her back to an abusive situation. His violent actions tell the truth while his words are misleading. Yes, those words sound good. Yes, he may even believe them himself. That will last until the next time he gets upset. Then the actions will be right back, telling the truth.
How about the young woman (and some older women) hearing the sweet vows of love? What are the actions that back up those vows? Sadly, there are many men who tell women what they want to hear in order to have sex or get something else. Young women are often lured to bed while older women may lose money if they listen to such a line. If he really wants to spend his life with you and raise a family he should treat you right and make the legal commitment called marriage. Only the actions are believable.
The deadbeat friend or relative asking for a loan is another case. Helping people is good but helping them remain deadbeats only keeps them down while harming everyone they cheat. Remember the saying: If a dog bites me once, shame on the dog. If he bites me twice, shame on me.
I could go on. Salespeople who lie once will lie again. Advertisers who mislead will continue to do so. The car company that failed to report dangerous acceleration should not be trusted, regardless of what the ads promise. That company needs years of living up to its promises before we can consider it trustworthy again.
While there are many trustworthy people in the world today, there are many who are quite otherwise. Our personal and public lives will be greatly improved if we fire the lying politicians and sales people and if we ignore the words of anyone whose actions contradict those words.
Beware the silver tongue.
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Monday, April 19, 2010
Friday, July 10, 2009
Sleight of Word
If you like my blog, please tell others.
If you don’t like it, please tell me.
“Hey Mom, we want to climb Rooster Rock.*” My friend’s son was the adventurous type and she didn’t like the idea.
“You will not climb Rooster Rock today.” Her response left no wiggle room – or so she thought. He didn’t climb it that day, he climbed it that night.
Every parent of a teenager has probably encountered such verbal rationalization. Kids tend to look for any excuse to avoid the clear wishes of their parents; it’s part of growing up. However such twisting of clear meaning is not limited to the young.
Suppose you ask your boss for a 10% raise. The boss says he would like to pay you that much, but with the current economic problems he just can’t do it. Instead you get a raise of 5%. Did you get an increase or decrease in your pay? Of course most people would laugh at you if you complained about getting your pay cut, it wasn’t cut it just wasn’t increased as much as you wanted. That’s the way mathematics works – unless you are in government.
The legislature in my state finally wrapped up its 2009 session, after much moaning and complaining about having to cut spending. In fact they raised the budget over the previous biennium. The “cut” was that they couldn’t spend as much as they wanted to spend. That is a common tactic among politicians: propose a big increase over previous spending, pass a smaller increase than originally proposed and call it a cut. Somehow they often get away with it.
That is only one example of fast and loose use of language to mislead people. Those who do this claim they didn’t lie, but the effect is the same. Politicians, advertisers and others twist the language in order to hide or change meaning instead of to communicate clearly. That is still dishonest and the people who do it are liars.
Like politicians, advertising and sales people regularly hide the truth with such terms as “save up to $50” or “we can help you lose up to 10 pounds in a week.” Just what does “up to” mean? Clearly if a person loses half an ounce or saves one penny, he is included in the “up to” group. Though advertisers mislead people into thinking they will save $50 or lose 10 pounds, few if any people will lose or save that much. The great majority will probably save or lose almost nothing. The term “up to” is a weasel word (or weasel term) that sucks meaning from the words around it, much as a weasel sucks the nourishment from an egg while leaving the shell externally intact but empty.
Similar examples abound. You’ve probably received mail from some company indicating that, “in order to serve you better we are making the following changes.” The changes often include fewer services or charging for services previously provided without charge. How that serves us better is never explained.
Some politicians want to avoid the label “liberal” so they call themselves “progressive” without saying just what is so progressive about their ideas. If we examine those ideas we find that they are quite similar to the statist “big government is right” beliefs that give liberals a bad reputation among much of the population. The “progressives” want to give us a bigger, more powerful government, something we rejected in 1776. I would call that regressive, not progressive. However the term “progressive” sounds good so they get away with it.
Unfortunately I don’t foresee any end to such disguised lying. As long as there is a buck to be made or political power to be gained, people will attempt to deceive others. They will seek loopholes, use misleading language and otherwise try to avoid plain and open communication. The only solution is for each of us to make the effort necessary to really understand. We should not just follow the misleading impressions they deliberately create.
We can ask ourselves what is really behind statements from advertisers, sales people, politicians and others who might benefit from creating misunderstandings. Are there “weasel words” that suck meaning from other words? Are there other meanings for the words being used? Are they inventing new meanings for words? Yes, that takes effort on our part, and constant vigilance, but there is no other way to protect ourselves from being deceived.
We can even go a step farther when opportunity presents itself. We can publicly point out the misleading communications. If a sales person claims savings of up to $50, ask him what the average saving is and how that number is determined. Ask the politicians how they can call a budget increase a cut. Ask the company how cutting previously provided services is supposed to serve us better.
What I would really like to see is for schools to teach critical thinking, encouraging students to question such statements. Certainly there is no shortage of examples they could use to illustrate such a class. However I doubt that will happen so we will all just have to do our part. With enough questioning, especially public questioning, we can expose those misleading claims. That would be especially true if people regularly and publicly tell those fancy liars, “I think you are trying to mislead me and I’m not going to fall for it.” If that starts happening regularly it will encourage those fancy liars to start using plain and effective communication instead of trying to cover up what they really mean.
*Rooster Rock is a basalt column, rising well over a hundred feet from the bank of the Columbia River. Though not a difficult climb, it is spectacular enough to give a mother gray hair.
If you don’t like it, please tell me.
“Hey Mom, we want to climb Rooster Rock.*” My friend’s son was the adventurous type and she didn’t like the idea.
“You will not climb Rooster Rock today.” Her response left no wiggle room – or so she thought. He didn’t climb it that day, he climbed it that night.
Every parent of a teenager has probably encountered such verbal rationalization. Kids tend to look for any excuse to avoid the clear wishes of their parents; it’s part of growing up. However such twisting of clear meaning is not limited to the young.
Suppose you ask your boss for a 10% raise. The boss says he would like to pay you that much, but with the current economic problems he just can’t do it. Instead you get a raise of 5%. Did you get an increase or decrease in your pay? Of course most people would laugh at you if you complained about getting your pay cut, it wasn’t cut it just wasn’t increased as much as you wanted. That’s the way mathematics works – unless you are in government.
The legislature in my state finally wrapped up its 2009 session, after much moaning and complaining about having to cut spending. In fact they raised the budget over the previous biennium. The “cut” was that they couldn’t spend as much as they wanted to spend. That is a common tactic among politicians: propose a big increase over previous spending, pass a smaller increase than originally proposed and call it a cut. Somehow they often get away with it.
That is only one example of fast and loose use of language to mislead people. Those who do this claim they didn’t lie, but the effect is the same. Politicians, advertisers and others twist the language in order to hide or change meaning instead of to communicate clearly. That is still dishonest and the people who do it are liars.
Like politicians, advertising and sales people regularly hide the truth with such terms as “save up to $50” or “we can help you lose up to 10 pounds in a week.” Just what does “up to” mean? Clearly if a person loses half an ounce or saves one penny, he is included in the “up to” group. Though advertisers mislead people into thinking they will save $50 or lose 10 pounds, few if any people will lose or save that much. The great majority will probably save or lose almost nothing. The term “up to” is a weasel word (or weasel term) that sucks meaning from the words around it, much as a weasel sucks the nourishment from an egg while leaving the shell externally intact but empty.
Similar examples abound. You’ve probably received mail from some company indicating that, “in order to serve you better we are making the following changes.” The changes often include fewer services or charging for services previously provided without charge. How that serves us better is never explained.
Some politicians want to avoid the label “liberal” so they call themselves “progressive” without saying just what is so progressive about their ideas. If we examine those ideas we find that they are quite similar to the statist “big government is right” beliefs that give liberals a bad reputation among much of the population. The “progressives” want to give us a bigger, more powerful government, something we rejected in 1776. I would call that regressive, not progressive. However the term “progressive” sounds good so they get away with it.
Unfortunately I don’t foresee any end to such disguised lying. As long as there is a buck to be made or political power to be gained, people will attempt to deceive others. They will seek loopholes, use misleading language and otherwise try to avoid plain and open communication. The only solution is for each of us to make the effort necessary to really understand. We should not just follow the misleading impressions they deliberately create.
We can ask ourselves what is really behind statements from advertisers, sales people, politicians and others who might benefit from creating misunderstandings. Are there “weasel words” that suck meaning from other words? Are there other meanings for the words being used? Are they inventing new meanings for words? Yes, that takes effort on our part, and constant vigilance, but there is no other way to protect ourselves from being deceived.
We can even go a step farther when opportunity presents itself. We can publicly point out the misleading communications. If a sales person claims savings of up to $50, ask him what the average saving is and how that number is determined. Ask the politicians how they can call a budget increase a cut. Ask the company how cutting previously provided services is supposed to serve us better.
What I would really like to see is for schools to teach critical thinking, encouraging students to question such statements. Certainly there is no shortage of examples they could use to illustrate such a class. However I doubt that will happen so we will all just have to do our part. With enough questioning, especially public questioning, we can expose those misleading claims. That would be especially true if people regularly and publicly tell those fancy liars, “I think you are trying to mislead me and I’m not going to fall for it.” If that starts happening regularly it will encourage those fancy liars to start using plain and effective communication instead of trying to cover up what they really mean.
*Rooster Rock is a basalt column, rising well over a hundred feet from the bank of the Columbia River. Though not a difficult climb, it is spectacular enough to give a mother gray hair.
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