Oggi vi propongo due articoli.
Il primo riguarda le abitudini linguistiche di Michael Bloomberg, il sindaco di New York. La sua parola preferita: unconscionable.
When a court awarded $308,000 in 2003 to a Bronx woman who slipped on a snowy sidewalk, the decision was “unconscionable.” When the city’s transit workers went on strike in 2005, their walkout was “unconscionable.” And when Mayor Bloomberg contemplated the possibility earlier this month that the State Assembly might not bring his congestion pricing plan to a vote, the mere thought of such a thing was — you guessed it — “unconscionable.”
As a way to express outrage, linguists say the word is an effective choice. It sounds more astute than “terrible.” It has more syllables than “disgraceful.” It has a certain weight that “unbelievable” and “disgraceful” lack.
And the word implies a subtle yet stinging critique of Mr. Bloomberg’s antagonists: that they lack a conscience. Because its meaning is so loaded, some linguists wondered whether Mr. Bloomberg might be using the word a little too liberally.
“It is a strong word and has a little bit of heft,” said Ben Zimmer, the editor of Visual Thesaurus, a Web site that charts synonyms and their relationships to one another. “So in terms of style, it might be better to use it less frequently.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “unconscionable” two ways. When it is used to describe a person, the word means “having no conscience.” When it applies to actions, the Oxford defines it as “showing no regard for conscience; not in accordance with what is right or reasonable.”
Il resto dell’articolo è qui.
Il secondo articolo prende spunto dal titolo di un CD di Neil Young, Are you passionate?, per riflettere sull’uso della parola passionate nel linguaggio pubblicitario/corporatese.
Ecco l’inizio:
Are you loving it?” asked Neil Young in his song Are You Passionate?. Some people are, but they’re probably not the ones Young had in mind, “we’re lovin’ it” being the slogan of McDonald’s. Young’s question was that of a rebel rock’n’roll poet, but the answer came straight out of corporate America.
As to the big question of the album Are You Passionate?, businesses are answering in the affirmative as never before. No matter how mundane an industry is, someone is passionate about it. For example, you probably couldn’t be less interested in anything in the news than Interpack 2008, a trade fair for the packaging industry. It has been going on in Dusseldorf. But Elopak is “passionate about packaging”, as are Active Packaging, Polyphane, Venture Packaging, L Gordon Packaging, WEBPackaging and countless other companies that use this same phrase in their marketing.
Potete leggere il resto su The Herald.
Postato da: IM
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