Chapter 6 - Exercise 3

Identifying Language Misused and Abused

In Chapter 6 you studied several types of language that characterizes so much of modern prose. Read each example carefully and then decide which of these choices it represents.

• cliches
• doublespeak
• euphemism
• jargon
• politically-correct
• language
• sneer words

1		According to James Miller, Federal Trade Commission chairman: "Imperfect products should be available because consumers have different preferences for defect avoidance." (The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar, 1998)
2		On their third date, Harry told Sally that she looked as pretty as a picture and that he was falling for her like a ton of bricks.
3		During the mid-90s, the African nation of Rwanda, approximately 800,000 Tutsis were killed by the dominant Hutus. The reasons for the slaughter are too complex to go into here, but the Western nations did nothing for several months, despite knowledge that genocide was taking place. The official White House position-Clinton was then president-was that "acts of genocide may have occurred." Christine Shelley, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, at a press briefing defended Clinton's position, but added that she wasn't in "a position to answer," adding "There are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of." (Quoted in Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998, 152.)
4		Article title from a journal published by the Journal of the English Council of California Two-Year Colleges: "A Theoretical Framework for an English Composition Course: The Dialectical Exchange as the Focalization of Learning" (Inside English, Spring/Summer 2000)
5		The Pentagon definition of a hammer: a manually powered fastener-driving impact device. (The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar, 1999.)
6		When the U.S. Postal Service announced in 1998 a rate increase in the cost of a first-class stamp (from 32 cents to 33 cents), consumers argued that the uneven number of 33 was inconvenient. Addressing the criticism, Postal money manager Michael J. Riley offered this explanation: It really isn't a price increase; it's really a price cut. His evidence was that the cost of living had risen since the last increase in stamp prices (in 1995). He ended by saying, "You give people a price cut by price increases less than inflation." (Quoted in Anne Beatty, "They're Going Postal Over Billion-Dollar Profits," Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1998, E3.)
7		During World War II, Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were forced to move to what the government referred to as "relocation centers." However, Nazi Germans and the Soviets imprisoned Jews and other undesirables in "concentration camps," a term of disparagement used by the Allies.
8		American businesses now use the term "paradigm shift" to mean everything from "a software upgrade to a new way of filling out expense reports. In the same way "core competencies" is the new phrase to rephrase the old word "skills." (Quoted in Ilana DeBare, "Brother Can You Paradigm?" San Francisco Chronicle, January 1, 1999.) and
9		Ronald Reagan, on the Iran hostage deal: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it's not." (The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar, 1997.)
10		Teachers of elementary reading apply this technique: "Add letter-sound correspondence instruction to phonological awareness interventions after children demonstrate early phonemic awareness." (In other words, the kids sound out the words once they know what the letters sound like.)
11		Memo from the Office of Management and Budget, a federal agency: "An agency subject to the provisions of the Federal Reports Act may enter into an arrangement with an organization not subject to the Act whereby the organization not subject to the Act collects information on behalf of the agency subject to the Act. The reverse also occurs." (The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar, 1997)
12		The magazine Lingua Franca (April 1999) published this excerpt by Homhi Bhabha of the University of Chicago for this sentence from his book, Locations of Culture. If, for a while, the rise of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate efforts to 'normalize' formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality. The magazine gave this excerpt an award as an example of the worst what?
13		A pamphlet on eye conditions describes people who are colorblind as "chromatically challenged."
14		From a book review: "This so-called writer indulges in self-absorbed reflections that no one could ever possibly learn anything from. Her characters are sketchy and unbelievable; the plot is pedestrian and formulaic. How such a hack got this book published is anyone's guess. The words "so-called" and "hack" are examples of