Spinglish: The Definitive Dictionary of Deliberately Deceptive Language - Hardcover

contents

introduction

Do you speak Spinglish? Well, if you speak English, chances are you’ve been using Spinglish for a long time, most likely without even knowing it. For example, have you ever overslept and missed a meeting and blamed your absence on a “scheduling error”? Tried to weasel out of a parking ticket because of an alleged “meter malfunction”? Explained that a bounced check was merely the result of an “unanticipated negative cash-balance accounting issue”?

Or, when you noticed that your hospital had billed you for a “disposable mucus recovery system,” did you figure out they were charging you fifteen bucks for a box of Kleenex? Are you aware that whenever companies say “for your convenience,” they actually mean “for our convenience”?

If you answered yes to even one of these questions, you’re already on the road to mastering the devious vocabulary of verbal distortion, and with our indispensable bilingual dictionary as your guide, odds are you’ll soon be earning your B.S. in B.S.—or, better still, a coveted Spin Doctorate. And even if you’re a rank beginner, don’t despair: Spinglish: The Definitive Dictionary of Deliberately Deceptive Language is virtually guaranteed to teach you how to succeed in business, politics—and everything else—without really lying!

But what precisely is Spinglish? Well, in spite of its polyglot-sounding name, it isn’t some foreign language. It’s just our native tongue, transformed into a sophisticated method of judicious miscommunication through the use of careful word choice and the artful rephrasing and reframing of familiar terms. To put it another way (which, of course, is what Spinglish is designed to do), it all comes down to making me sound better, or you sound worse, or both. I’m a freedom fighter, you’re a terrorist. I want to enhance revenues, you want to raise taxes. My product is artisanal, all-natural, and organic; yours is mass-produced, synthetic, and contains artificial additives.

Needless to say, any language can be used to convey or conceal all sorts of meanings and messages, but English is unparalleled in its capacity for creative misdirection, thanks to a couple of unique linguistic features. First, with over a million words, it has the largest vocabulary of any language in the world, and with more than a billion speakers, it is the most widely spoken.

And second, English basically consists of two completely separate and complementary sub-languages: Latin, from the Romans who conquered England and bequeathed us mostly polysyllabic (and often nicely evasive) formulations like “exterminate” and “circumlocution,” and the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Nordic, and Germanic vernaculars of our barbarian ancestors on the wrong end of the catapult who gave us short, simple, cut-to-the-chase words like “kill” and “bullshit.”

Of course, using language to control a narrative is nothing new. Long before George Orwell wrote 1984, our nation coined Orwellian terms like “Manifest Destiny” to rationalize a transcontinental land grab, “Indian reservations” to refer to forced relocation sites for Native Americans, and “Benevolent Assimilation” to describe the violent seizure of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, to name just a few.

It’s also important to distinguish between slang and jargon, which are spontaneously generated, and loaded language and weasel words, which are premeditated. Saying that a bunch of people who were fired were “given the boot” or that someone who died “kicked the bucket” is just colorful; describing mass layoffs with euphemisms like “downsizing” or “rightsizing,” or a death due to malpractice as a “negative patient care outcome,” is deliberately deceptive.

The fact is, not only has Spinglish been around for a long time, it’s everywhere: on Wall Street and Madison Avenue, inside the Beltway, in Silicon Valley and Hollywood, in the fields of Law, Medicine, the Arts—you name it, and if you can name it, someone can rename it to make it sound a whole lot better and promote it with a flurry of press releases flogged by a host of professional Spinocchios and hundreds of highly paid liars with fireproof pants ready to pull the genuine imitation faux wool over your eyes.

But now, thanks to this shoot-from-the-lip glossary of time-tested, tried-and-untrue terminology, you, too, can have just the right self-serving phrase at the tip of your forked tongue, and no matter how embarrassing the situation or awkward the silence, you’ll never be at a loss for misleading words again!

So apply some Sock-Puppet News-Job nose-growth-control cream, shown to be of significant value in limiting topical, prevarication-related nasal lengthening (your results may vary), put on that pair of Poppy-Khaki brand combustion-resistant trousers (certified 100% effective when worn with approved carbon-fiber undergarments), and issue a statement, run an ad, or just offer a simple explanation that tells it like it isn’t, it wasn’t, and it couldn’t ever have been.

spin·glish–
en·glish

a

abortion machines. A term coined by radio host Rush Limbaugh to bemoan what morally lax Democratic pro-choice policies are “turning women into.” Example: Meryl Streep earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance in The French Lieutenant’s Abortion Machine.1

above critical. A relatively soothing term used by nuclear engineers to describe a reactor that is out of control and in danger of melting down, or worse still, blowing up.2 [See also: core rearrangement; super-prompt critical power excursion.]

abuse. Torture, especially when it’s conducted by the United States or its allies. Consider, for example, this quote from Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a reporter’s question about photographs showing U.S. troops torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War: “I’m not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. . . . I don’t know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place. . . . And therefore I’m not going to address the torture word.”3 [See also: enhanced interrogation techniques; human rights abuses; pain compliance techniques; repetitive administration of legitimate force; special methods of questioning; stress and duress tactics.]

academically fragile. A term used to describe student athletes whose poor grades or lack of class attendance threaten their accreditation for a college sports team.4

ACC (aggressive carbon copy). A copy of a business e-mail message sent to a third party (e.g., the CEO of your company) in hopes of undermining the recipient.5

Accelerated Pacification Campaign. See: pacification.

acceptable. Unacceptable, except to those using the term. For example, as author Paul Dickson explains, the phrase “acceptable unemployment” describes an employment level that is acceptable only “to those who have a job.”6

access controller. A doorman.7

An access controller.

accidental delivery of ordnance equipment. Bombing something other than your intended target—a civilian hospital, for example, or your own troops.8 [See also: friendly fire; incontinent ordnance.]

accommodator. Anyone who’s willing to compromise when you don’t want to. (The term was coined in 2013 by a Georgia Tea Party U.S. senatorial candidate, David Perdue, to characterize congressional Republicans willing to meet the Democrats halfway on budget issues.)9

accounting irregularity. Fraud.10

accreted morphological obstacle disruptor. Pick axe.11

An accreted morphological obstacle disruptor.

acluistic. Clueless, and according to Dangerous Logic’s “Office Jargon for the 21st Century” web page, “extraordinarily clue-resistant.” Example: Jason is so acluistic that you can call him “acluistic” to his face without his being offended.12 [See also: reverse infallibility.]

acolytes. A dismissive political term used to characterize the supporters of an opposing politician or political movement.13

acquired taste. Food writer Nick Heady describes this as “something people only ever say about foods that are horrible.”14

“acting only with all the facts in hand.” Something that political strategist Frank Luntz advises Republicans to say they’re in favor of, as a substitute for declaring their unyielding opposition to any and all measures designed to alleviate global warming. This tactic will only work, of course, with audiences who still believe there’s a good chance that global warming isn’t really occurring. Therefore, Luntz advises his GOP clients, “you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”15 [See also: “making the right decision, not the quick decision.”]

action (verb). To make something a priority (and possibly even work on it). As the invaluable website CheesyCorporateLingo.com points out, this term is particularly useful when reassuring your boss that whatever he or she is talking about is right at the top of your to-do list.16

active. An adjective, commonly used in teacher evaluations, to describe children who are disruptive or who have an attention deficit disorder.17

active consideration. See: under active consideration.

active defense. The National Security Agency’s term for the computer surveillance and cyberattack programs it implements. The phrase was first used in response to the disclosure that the agency had secretly implanted radio transmitters, hidden in USB plugs and tiny circuit boards, in more than 100,000 computers worldwide, and then used them to collect and/or alter software data.18

activist. A term favored by conservatives for anyone they disagree with. ExtremelySmart.com’s Jerry Merchant and Mary Matthews offer the following examples: “Activist” unions, “activist” school boards, and “activist” homosexuals.19 [See also: activist judge.]

activist judge. A judge who interprets the law in a way that recognizes and guarantees someone else’s constitutional or legal rights in a manner of which you don’t approve.20 [See also: activist.]

address. To devote at least a minimum amount of attention to. As the Office Life blog points out, when you offer to “address” a problem brought to you by a customer or a superior, you’re making no actual commitment to solve it—a commitment for which you might later be held accountable.21

adhere more closely to a special forces philosophy. Phraseology used in 2008 by Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk to describe what he was doing when he laid off 10 percent of his company’s workforce.22 [See also: modest reduction in near-term head count.]

adjunct professor. A part-time college teacher with one or more advanced degrees but no job security or health benefits and few if any prospects of full-time university employment. When an adjunct professor loses his job, he becomes an adjunct professor emeritus.23

adjust. Reduce downward. Example: “We’re adjusting our revenue projections,” Mr. Creighan enthused, “which gives us a rare opportunity to engage in some long-overdue workforce imbalance rectification.”24

administrative professional. Secretary. Also called, with slightly less euphemistic effect, an “administrative assistant.”25 [See also: area associate; executive assistant; office manager; personal assistant.]

adorable. A real-estate term for an extremely small house.26

An adorable property featuring a unique roof design.

adult beverage. Beer, wine, or liquor.27

adult entertainment. Pornography.28

adverse event. A U.S. Federal Drug Administration term for drug reactions resulting in “death, life-threatening outcomes, hospitalization, persistent or significant disability, or congenital anomaly/birth defects.”29

advice. A term used by New York governor Andrew Cuomo to characterize the political pressure applied by his office and his aides as part of a well-documented pattern of interference with the Moreland Commission, a government anti-corruption panel that the governor himself had established but then abruptly shut down after it began investigating his own ethics.30

aerodynamic personnel decelerator. A U.S. Army term for parachute.31

aesthetic procedure. Face-lift.32

affected by material error. A phrase used by European Union accountants to designate money stolen from a budget.33

affirmative action. Preferential treatment; racial quotas; reverse discrimination.34

affluenza. A term favored by members of the anti-consumerist voluntary simplicity movement, who define it as a social malaise caused by rampant materialism and consumerism. The “disease” gained national attention after sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch, the son of a Fort Worth sheet metal magnate, pleaded guilty to killing four pedestrians in a drunk driving episode fueled by beer he’d helped steal from a local Walmart, but was let off without prison time after a psychologist, hired as an expert witness by his defense lawyer, convinced Judge Jean Boyd that the youth was an affluenza victim, whose background of wealth and privilege had robbed him of the ability to take responsibility for his behavior. Instead of being sent to jail, Couch was sentenced to twelve months of inpatient treatment at a $450,000-a-year rehab center paid for by his parents. “In other words,” wrote neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz, because Couch “never learned that there are consequences to his actions,” he was rewarded with an opportunity to “learn again that there are none—and that money can always buy an easier, softer way.”35

affordable portable lifestyle beverage. A phrase used by Michael Bellas, CEO of the Beverage Marketing Corporation, to describe bottled water. Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times chose Mr. Bellas’s term as the 2013 winner of the annual Golden Flannel Award for the finest example of “corporate guff” in the “rebranded common object” category. “To call something free ‘affordable,’ and something that is necessary for life itself a matter of ‘lifestyle,’” Kellaway wrote, “represents the idiocy and verbosity the Flannel Awards were established to recognise.”36

after-death care provider. Undertaker.37 [See also: bereavement care expert; post-health professional.]

after-sales service fees. Kickbacks.38

aggravated bovine ejection. A term used by medics to pinpoint the cause of injuries suffered by a professional bull rider who was thrown from his ill-tempered two-ton mount during a rodeo performance.39

aggressive accou...