So might say the weasel upon being accused
of eating an egg. According to the
Wikipedia entry on weasel words, an account of how weasels eat eggs given in
Shakespeare may explain the origin of the term “weasel word”.
Shakespeare claimed that a weasel would suck
out the inside of an egg without breaking the shell, thus leaving little
evidence that they had eaten it. So if
the animal police came to arrest him, the weasel could put up a good defence.
The Wikipedia article also states that
weasels do not eat eggs like this, but it is a good image to use to understand
“weasel word”.
Weasel words allow the speaker or writer to
avoid taking responsibility for what they are saying or writing. They dilute the meaning of their
statements or suggest an authority that they do not really have.
I was recently listening to some lectures
on world history and they were extremely annoying because they were full of
weasel words. Here are some examples
that I can remember:
1 - “The two societies were somewhat
similar.”
What does that sentence mean? Were the two societies similar or not? The word “somewhat” is a weasel word,
allowing the historian to mean that the two societies were very similar, or
only a little bit similar. It would be
hard then to prove him wrong!
2 – “The Roman Empire is often said to have
been less culturally innovative than Han China.”
Really?
Who says that? Are they experts
on both the Roman Empire and Han China?
How did they come to their opinion?
Does the speaker of the sentence above agree with what “is often
said”? We don’t know. Using the passive voice to avoid
assigning responsibility for an opinion is a very common form of weasel words.
3 – “It could be argued that the Roman
Empire needed continual expansion to survive.”
Aaargh!
Stop it, stop it! Did the Roman
Empire need continual expansion to survive or didn’t it? Anything could be argued, but I want to know
if that is what you are arguing or not and what evidence you have to support
your argument.
Sometimes it is useful to use phrases like
“somewhat” or “It could be argued”. They
can demonstrate your lack of certainty about the topic you are discussing,
giving the listener warning that perhaps they should check the facts
themselves.
But weasel words are not appropriate for
scientific articles, historical opinion pieces, news reports etc. We need to know where the information for
these articles was gained in order to properly judge how reliable it is.
The course of lectures I listened to was an
amazing achievement which managed to teach almost nothing in 35 half an hour
lectures. I only listened to the end to marvel
at how poor the quality was. There
were a lot of reasons for that. But
chief amongst the culprits was the weasel.
Vocabulary:
to suck – to draw (liquid, air, etc.) into the mouth by movements of the tongue and lips.
to dilute something – to reduce the
concentration of something. Strong
tasting drinks may be diluted with water to make them easier to drink.
to be innovative – To be good at coming up
with new ideas or ways of doing things.
the passive voice – A way of making
sentences, which leaves out the subject or puts it at the end. For example, “It is said...”, “It was built
by him.”
to marvel at something – To wonder at
something; to be amazed by something.
a culprit – Someone guilty of or
responsible for causing a crime, problem etc.
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