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Richard Walker

Demotive Conjugations

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Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 29 Nov 2015, 02:35

These are the converse of Bertrand Russell's linguistic invention of the emotive conjugation, but still drawing attention to the way that language is both denotative and connotative (the meaning and the feeling) and how loaded language stops us thinking clearly. Plus they help you feel bad about yourself. To illustrate:

I am a worm.
Compared with me you are cool
She is a diva.

Here are some more I thought up, in my poor way.

I do not have a Phd
You do.
She is a professor.

I am no longer even moderately attractive
You have retained your appearance quite well, considering
She is photographed for the Daily Mail whenever she appears on a beach.

I am lazy.
You relax regularly, so you are fresh enough to maintain high standards
She has progressed beyond the workload illusion and founded a ground-breaking consultancy
.

None of these are very good. You must be able to do better.

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Me in a rare cheerful mood

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"You must be able to do better."

In bed, in the middle of the night, my mind can—and does—churn these out endlessly.  So I'll skip doing it in the daytime.  mixed