"In fact, since the entire Buenke operation is under his command, he'll be the one responsible for shaping and disseminating the official narrative of what happened here."and
"Of course, the high-visibility brace on his hand leaves no one in any doubt about the narrative subtext that's being peddled here."What's so ominous about narrative? Couldn't Glynn have substituted story with equal effect? I don't know. Narrative, especially as a noun, is a vogue word, and vogue words, especially ones with lots of syllables, are good for concealing an absence of thought or conveying an illusion of seriousness. I may have more to say on this subject going forward.
But Glynn's ear for contemporary Orwellianisms goes further:
"`...your best chance with these people will actually be down to something else entirely, something quite intangible.'and
"Conway looks at him. `What's that?'
"`You. The Conway Holdings brand.'"
"I've got to take it to the next level, you know, keep the traction but change the conversation."The speakers of the boldface word are, respectively, a lawyer advising a client on evading the consequences of a shady deal, and a politician trying to capitalize on a monstrous lie. Be very, very skeptical of people who talk or write like that.
***
Most Americans would likely associate Richard Nixon ("This point in time") and the second George Bush ("Regime change") with truth-deflecting political euphemisms, but the Bill Clinton years ushered their own creepy phrases into popular speech, "national conversation," to name one, a weirdly bogus attempt to create an illusion of community in a fragmented culture. What euphemisms and evasions do you find especially nauseating? What authors have especially sharp eyes and ears for them? © Peter Rozovsky 2011
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