This piece reminds me of the political commentator / philosopher Jamie Wyte's book "Bad Thoughts: A guide to clear thinking" He introduced the idea of "hooray" words and "boo" words which could be used as important only to signify a position in an argument that you one is taking. This piece describes the same phenomenon because people are usually desperate to use their language to place them in a favourable position with whoever is listening or reading them, as described. Whyte reduced that to the description I gave.
Once that is acknowledged then the ridiculousness of their use becomes apparent thereby rightly reducing the impact of the user of them, or at least, their opinions.
Another useful tool is to point out that the use of certain words is made to look ridiculous if you say you support the opposite. For example, almost everyone overtly claims to be in favour of "sustainability". If I say to such a person that "Oh no, I take the opposite view, I'm in favour of unsustainabilty" then the proposition of "sustainability" without qualification looks (and is) ridiculous, and shows that people or organisations are indeed just using it for effect as a "hooray" word, thereby making themselves look ridiculous rather than the other person (me) claiming to believe in unsustainability.
This piece reminds me of the political commentator / philosopher Jamie Wyte's book "Bad Thoughts: A guide to clear thinking" He introduced the idea of "hooray" words and "boo" words which could be used as important only to signify a position in an argument that you one is taking. This piece describes the same phenomenon because people are usually desperate to use their language to place them in a favourable position with whoever is listening or reading them, as described. Whyte reduced that to the description I gave.
Once that is acknowledged then the ridiculousness of their use becomes apparent thereby rightly reducing the impact of the user of them, or at least, their opinions.
Another useful tool is to point out that the use of certain words is made to look ridiculous if you say you support the opposite. For example, almost everyone overtly claims to be in favour of "sustainability". If I say to such a person that "Oh no, I take the opposite view, I'm in favour of unsustainabilty" then the proposition of "sustainability" without qualification looks (and is) ridiculous, and shows that people or organisations are indeed just using it for effect as a "hooray" word, thereby making themselves look ridiculous rather than the other person (me) claiming to believe in unsustainability.
Agreed. A good example is 'green jobs', which combines two hooray words in the hope that it somehow adds up to a policy.