House of Eratosthenes

Terminological inexactitude is a phrase introduced in 1906 by British politician (later Prime Minister) Winston Churchill. Today, it is used as a euphemism or circumlocution meaning a lie or untruth.

Churchill first used the phrase during the 1906 election. After the election in the House of Commons on 22 February 1906, as Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office, he repeated what he had said during the campaign:

The conditions of the transvaal ordinance … cannot in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government be classified as slavery; at least, that word in its full sense could not be applied without a risk of terminological inexactitude.

It seems this first usage was strictly literal, merely a roundabout way of referring to inexact or inaccurate terminology. But it was soon interpreted or taken up as a euphemism for an outright lie. To accuse another member in the House of lying is unparliamentary, so a way of implying that without saying it was very useful.

Will:

“Someone has to tell the president it’s not clever to be seen trying to be clever. In all the prevarications and equivocations of politics, one tries to be economical in the use of the word ‘lie.’ That’s what Churchill once said an opponent was guilty of terminological in exactitude,” said [George] Will, a syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor.

Will continued, “Well, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that even if the president really didn’t know on September 26 what was going to happen on the first of October, now he knows what he actually said then, and he’s not telling the truth about what he said then.”

From Goddard.

As we recall presidents from ages past, we see a great many who are evaluated with consistency across the ideological divide, either as bad, average or much-better-than-average. Some are remembered fondly, leaving the kind of legacy we can imagine all presidents would like to leave. The characteristics they have in common are a bit difficult to highlight, but after looking at them all starting with Washington, one such characteristic bubbles to the forefront: meaningful honesty. Not “I didn’t lie after all, it’s your fault for taking what I said the wrong way” honesty. The-meaning-of-is honesty doesn’t make the cut. This is the kind of honesty that inspires trust and confidence. He meant what he said, and he said what he meant. That, our experience has taught us, imbues presidents with the best rep. The coveted rep. The rep all presidents would like to have.

I wonder why, in the moment, we seem to have this disagreement about whether it’s good to be “clever” in the way Will mockingly describes cleverness.

Had I ever been on the Obama bandwagon, this is the kind of nonsense that would give me a powerful push off of it. Apart from tearing up all the nation’s highways at the same time, this emerges as the strongest candidate among the instants in which my support would likely cease. It isn’t appealing. Would you buy a house, a car, a computer keyboard from some guy whose words you constantly had to parse with surgical precision in order to keep from being fleeced?

This “it’s all your fault for trusting me/us” is seriously, seriously wearing on me. I doubt I’m the only one.

Paradoxically, I think this kind of stuff pushes them further onto the bandwagon, since this is the only rhetorical tool they themselves have. It reminds me of nothing more than high school. All high school kids try some version of this argument on their parents or teachers. If it works, they join the debate club, then go on to law school. If it doesn’t, they go on to be decent, productive citizens.

Clever little word games are the liberal’s Leatherman. Obama is the apotheosis of its use.
- Severian | 11/08/2013 @ 08:29
Clever little word games == liberal’s Leatherman.

Pure poetry.
- mkfreeberg | 11/08/2013 @ 10:17

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Terminological InexactitudeFriday, November 8th, 2013

Terminological Inexactitude
Friday, November 8th, 2013