Transcript Slide 1 - APwikiWARRIORS

“Tall” Coffees and
Assault Weapons
By: Melanie Matlock and Ryanne Gorsuch
Trick #1: Misnomers
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Words that don’t actually mean what the
public assumes they mean
Prevalent in advertising
Ex. “Large” olives are the third smallest you
can get. Their sizes are small, medium,
large, extra large, jumbo, colossal, and
super colossal.
Trick #2: Frame It and
Claim It
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Using words or
phrases to make
something appear as
something it isn’t.
Ex. Estate Tax being
called the Death Tax
Trick # 3: Weasel Words
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Vague terms used to
exaggerate the truth.
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Ex. “Up to” and “may”
Trick #4: Eye Candy
Trick #5: The “Average”
Bear
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Stresses the
importance of visual
images over the
spoken word.
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Used with the hopes
that people will hear
“average” and think
“typical.”
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Ex. Commercials for
most drugs/medicines
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Ex. Tax Cuts
Trick #6: The Baseline Bluff
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Commonly used in politics
Ex. In Britain’s 2005 elections, the Labour party
plastered yellow “Warning” posters all over
Britain. They were claiming that the Tories will cut
money from public services while in reality the
Tories planned to increase spending. However
the increase that they were proposing was much
smaller than what the Labour party planned, so
they called it a cut. When all is said and done, the
Tories were planning a smaller increase rather
than a cut.
Trick # 7: The Literally
True Falsehood
Trick # 8: The Implied
Falsehood
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Using words that are
deceptive but not
technically a lie.
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Advertisers try to imply
what they can not
legally say.
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Ex. Reduced Fat
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Ex. Ab Force
Weasel Words: The Art of Saying
Nothing at All
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The concept of weasel words came up not
only in chapter three, but in the reading
from Language Awareness.
Current day example: Yaz birth control
commercials. The weasel word was “help”
which means to assist or aid, not stop,
eliminate, solve or heal.
Politics and the English Language
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Orwell states that the downfall of modern
English language can be attributed to
political causes, as well as bad habits
which continue to be repeated.
Chapter three contains many examples of
how politicians use words to deceive
people such as The “Average” Bear and
the Baseline Bluff.
1984
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Through newspeak Orwell was able to
show how much power language has to
influence independent thought.
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The power of language can also be seen
through unSpun and how easily people can
be deceived by clever use of language.