German linguists: 'Alternative facts' the non-word of 2017

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

German linguists: ‘Alternative facts’ the non-word of 2017

Today

BERLIN (AP) — German linguists have declared the phrase “alternative facts,” popularized by White House aide Kellyanne Conway, the non-word of 2017.

Conway used the phrase last year when asked why President Donald Trump’s then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer mischaracterized the size of the inauguration crowd.

A team of six language experts at Darmstadt University chose “alternative facts” from among 684 suggestions.

German news agency dpa quoted the head of the panel as saying Tuesday the phrase represents the growing practice of “replacing factual arguments with claims that cannot be proven.”

Each year the panel singles out a phrase that runs counter to the principles of democracy or human dignity. Last year it chose the German term “Volksverraeter,” roughly “traitor to one’s people,” used by far-right groups to label politicians who they disagree with.

https://apnews.com/ea702667580744c2a53bf9475855b2c2/German-linguists:-'Alternative-facts'-the-non-word-of-2017

[Igel]

1. I liked hearing that one dictionary publisher

chose "Milkshake Duck" as the word of the year. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/15/milkshake-duck-announced-as-macquarie-dictionarys-word-of-the-year

Had to look up with a "milkshake duck" was.

Old idea. But it seems so much more widespread now than it was when I came of age and one of my first real intellectual stances in the mid-'70s was to despise the practice, primarily in cult-like settings like churches and fads or diets. (And it wasn't new then. Soviet Russian literature makes it clear the idea was common, and reading Izvestiya and Pravda even in the late '70s and in the '80s still had a lot of this kind of thinking in evidence. Have to assume it's a human thang.)