2 ms·

Strange, I remember people using the phrase in sentences where one would otherwise say "polite", like "that's not the polite term" or "that's not the politicall

• dragonwriter 10y ago
  That use does exist, but it's a (popular in the mid-90s, still occasionally encountered) ironic use that derives from the older (and particularly common by the American Right against the Left in the late 1980s and early 1990s, its peak before the current resurgence among the same political faction) use as a pejorative. So, the modern popularity of the older and original pejorative use isn't "losing meaning" from that use...
  • xapata 10y ago
    In those cases, perhaps its use was objectively ironic, but it was not ironic from the speaker's perspective.
    • dragonwriter 10y ago
      While a minority of users may not have ironic intent, usually its use in the context referenced is deliberately ironic; the pejorative use has always been far more common, and it's very unusual for someone using the phrase in any sense not to be aware of that and, if not using it in the pejorative sense, be making a deliberate, usually ironic, reference to that well-known sense when using it in any other way.