2 ms·
Yeah, this makes sense to me according to my experience of people's perceptions of loaded words. When a word may seem like it has e.g. five or six meanings - i
by pizza 9y ago
Yeah, this makes sense to me according to my experience of people's perceptions of loaded words. When a word may seem like it has e.g. five or six meanings
- it conveys more bits of information
- plausible deniability -> capacity to retroactively compress the word's meaning
- people 'analyze'/recognize simpler words (only one meaning, i.e. GitHub) differently than they do loaded words (multiple meanings, i.e. dream)
- people take their own personal uncertainty (over which meaning is the correct one that they need to interpret the word as) as a sign that if they share their recognition, it's more likely to make them look like a fool in public
Observers realize that the original speaker's (e.g. Trump or Stalin) plausible deniability is a kind of insurance policy against audience members calling them out
- mannykannot 9y agoI am not sure that plausible deniability is much of an issue, because the people making such statements don't seem to care if they are caught in a contradiction or lie. Why don't they care? Because their supporters, and those who are close to being their supporters, don't care. It's not so much about deceiving the skeptics (who are not likely to be deceived anyway) as it is about giving those who incline to one's views an excuse for believing that their instincts were unquestionably right, and to get them worked up about it (this applies to Trump et. al. rather than Stalin, because the latter had other means of getting his way, and whatever you think of Trump, he is no Stalin.)
- pizza 9y agoI agree, but what I'm saying is that perceived plausible deniability makes speaking out against quadruple-entendres seem more futile, as any supporter can say it meant something else