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Published on The Shadow of the Enlightenment (http://www2.evergreen.edu/shadow)

Stephanie Ash Word Choice

Word choice is critical in the conveying bits of insight about the speaker or writer's world-view to the listener or reader. Does it matter if I use stewardess or steward, waitress or server, witty or sarcastic to describe someone? Does it matter if I describe a policy as flexible or supple? In France right now the use of the words flexibilite and precarite are fighting words for employers, employees and politicians. Flexible implies that the state is not the guarantor of the collective interest, an idea that is entrenched into the French people. So important is this identity that Segelone Royal even denied using the word flexibilite in a recent interview and claimed later she had said souplesse instead so she would not be identified with economic liberalism. What words we use give others hints at not only who we want them to think we are but also who we think, how we identify all others around us to be.

‹ Dave Raileanu [0]Janet Williford › [0]

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