#79: Precision and Pitfalls in Word Choice: Weasel Words

The Cru discuss the finer points of word choice, as well as our process of refining prose when working through the editing process. Stories this week feature a camp waiting for war; a southern car salesman; an exploration of the sort of words a weasel might say, if he could find his voice; and words spoken in a relationship. From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Weasel words. Words of convenient ambiguity, or a statement from which the original meaning has been sucked or retracted. Theodore Roosevelt popularized the 30 term by using it in a speech in 1916 when criticizing he President Wilson. A quotation from the speech provides a good example: 'You can have universal training, or you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word air voluntary to qualify the word universal, you are using a que weasel word; it has sucked all the meaning out of universal. The two words flatly contradict one another.' AusRoosevelt was indebted to a story by Stewart Chaplin,  'Stained-glass Political Platform', which appeared in the Century Magazine in June 1900, and in which occurs the sentence: 'Why, weasel words are words that suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks the egg and leaves the shell.' Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!  Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do. Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.