The Russell conjugation (2020) | Hacker News Reader

The Russell conjugation (2020)

emersongreenblog.wordpress.com

31 pointsfeltsense14 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation

Examples

Proper use of emotive conjugation provides words that are synonymous in their factual definitions, but different in their emotional connotation. While most examples are in triads, emotive conjugation can be used with a single subject.

Examples of emotive conjugation include:

I am sparkling; you are unusually talkative; he is drunk.

I know my own mind; you like things to be just so; they have to have everything their way.

I am a freedom fighter, you are a rebel, and he is a terrorist.

I am righteously indignant, you are annoyed, he is making a fuss over nothing.

I have reconsidered the matter, you have changed your mind, he has gone back on his word.

When the media wants to call someone a terrorist without explicitly saying it, they say that they live in a "compound" rather than a farm, ranch, or whatever else.

I personalize, you track across apps, they invade your privacy.

The “irregular verbs” made famous on Yes, Minister.

The original: “I give a confidential press briefing, you leak, he's being charged under Section 2(a) of the Official Secrets Act.”

That's another of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential press briefings; you leak; he's being charged under section 2A of the Official Secrets Act.

-- Bernard Woolley, Yes, Minister

I have principles, you have ideologies, they have dogma.

>different words and phrases can be factual synonyms, but emotional antonyms

I can't believe that this is some novel concept. Surely this has been a rhetorical tactic for as long as rhetoric has existed.

My favorite example of this is "average" vs "normal". People want to be considered normal but do not want to be considered average.

This seems like the same thing as Orwellian doubletalk with a fancy name. What am I missing? It's a play on the definitions of words.

"Russell Conjugation" gives an age old process a solid and easy to google name.

Doubletalk is more about deliberately avoiding certain words or terms, trying to limit the thoughts that can be expressed. You wouldn't want to do ungood things would you? That would be double+ ungood.

>It's a play on the definitions of words.

It's more of a play of the emotional meanings of words. We in the US talk about the founding fathers, patriots, freedom fighters.... those same people were regarded as traitors, terrorists, and insurrectionists by the British Empire. The same acts of war, but from a different emotional vantage.

Definitely related and certainly an ancient concept.

The British government X, according to the BBC.

The Pakistani regime Y, according to Pakistani state media.

Usually the joke for Pakistan state media is that they open the paragraph with “He [dictator du jour] said… (Unhon ne kaha…)”

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