PRECISE MEANING

People who talk to each other in English aren’t always speaking the same language. Ordinary words have different meanings for different people. For example, words that tell how one feels about something have personal meanings.

“Coffee tastes better than tea.”

“Cocoa Village is cooler than downtown Melbourne.”

“Hockey is more exciting than football.”

What do you mean by “better,” “cooler,” and “more exciting” is different from what other people mean, and no one else in the world has exactly the same taste as you.

WORDS

words don’t have any meaning by themselveswords carry meaning from one person to anotherthe meaning the speaker intends is not necessarily the meaning the listener hearsin order for the meaning to be transmitted successfully, key words often need to be discussed and defined

SYMBOLS

words or objects that represent ideasexamples: a heart represents love; a skull and crossbones to represent deathsome symbols have different meanings to different people

STEREOTYPES

a fixed mental image of a person, place, idea, or eventnot a picture of what something actually is, but a picture of what we expect that something to bethe less we know about something, the stronger the stereotypes tend to bestereotypes are difficult to avoidin order to make sense of the world, our minds tend to standardize what we seethey let us know what to expectyet, stereotypes never correspond exactly with realitysome are more accurate than othersall are oversimplifications which tend to block out individual differences, contradictions, and nuancesat their worst, stereotypes block out realitystereotypes are difficult to changewe tend to notice what fits our stereotypes and avoid evidence that doesn’t fitbecause we all use stereotypes, we should constantly be aware of their weaknessesstereotypes are not what reality is but what we think reality isstereotypes tend to oversimplify complex facts and ignore individual differencesstereotypes resist change

APPEALS TO EMOTION

they come from many sourcesmost common are advertising/marketing and political speechclever use of vocabulary (often very descriptive) to influence your emotions

EUPHEMISM

a nice way of saying something unpleasant“Steve is no longer with us” vs. “Steve died”“Your paintings sure are different” vs. “Your paintings are ugly”sometimes used to protect people’s feelingssometimes used to make unpleasant news more bearablebut they can also be used to make ordinary facts seem exciting or to cover up the truthNazis referred to their death camps as “relocation centers”the mental torture of American POWs during the Korean War was referred to by the North Korean communists as “reeducation”

JARGON

most common meaning: unintelligible or meaningless talk or writingwords/language used by writers when they want to impress you rather than communicate with youcan also mean: the language particular to a trade, profession, or other groupyour academic major or area of interest may have its own jargonthis special language can also be used to obfuscate real meaningjargon should always be defined according to the audience for your writing

INDEFINITE NUMBERS

words likeseveralmanymostoftenit was commonly believedmay be used by authors to disguise the fact that they don’t have much information about a subjectspecific numbers provide a stronger argumentExample: From the colonial period on, many Americans believed in expansionism.How many? Three? Sixteen? Twenty thousand? Forty percent of the population? It is not clear

IMPRESISE MEANING is a common tool of propaganda and those with weak or no evidence to support their arguments.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many thanks to Philip Roden and his short text, The Elusive Truth. Though long out of print, it is still an exceptional resource for introducing the basics of critical thinking and message analysis.