Politicians often toss around big, multi syllable words. I’m not sure if they do this to sound smart or important or to deliberately confuse, but I thought I’d review a few such politically charged words so we can be smarter consumers of media. 😉
In a recent editorial that ran in our local paper, US Representative Morgan Griffith (of the 9th Congressional district of Virginia) criticized China for hiding information about the origin of the virus that causes COVID-19 infections. Griffith is on a congressional committee investigating the issue. In his editorial, Griffith said, “From the outset, China’s Communist oligarchy covered up the true danger of COVID-19 as well as its extent. The rest of the world paid the price for their fecklessness.”
My son doubted fecklessness was actually a word. “What is feck?” He asked. “What makes something feckless?” Turns out, the dictionary had a clue.
Oligarchy: noun from the Greek oligoi “few” and arkhein “to rule”; definition: government by the few; a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes (more at dictionary.com)
Fecklessness: noun from Scots and northern English dialect feck from effeck, a variant of effect, and less; definition: weakness, ineffectiveness (from Dictionary.com)
Fecklessness has satisfying “f” and “k” sounds, yet it is cumbersome to say. Can you think of a better word to describe the ineffectiveness Griffith is addressing? Please share it in the comments.
Are there any other politically charged words you’d like to learn more about?
Thanks for getting nerdy with me.
I like the word feckless. Initially I thought it should be used more, but then realised that, like other words, it would be over-used by commentators, pundits and others of their ilk. So, let’s just keep it among ourselves.
I agree, Peter. The consonants are very satisfying. We’ll keep it our secret. 😉