Free Republic

This new run on the outrage treadmill projects the contemporary left’s obsession with race and racism onto the right.In a 1994 New York Times op-ed, the famed linguist Steven Pinker introduced the “euphemism treadmill,” the idea that as much as we keep replacing more benign-sounding terms for those that have acquired a negative valence, ultimately, “concepts, not words, are in charge,” so when we “give a concept a new name, … the name becomes colored by” our underlying negative associations once more over time. Eventually a new name has to be invented, and the game starts all over again.Thus, we...

As we prepare for the debate over a possible DACA bill, Leo R. Chavez takes to the pages of the L.A. Times this week, not to complain about any of the specific policy initiatives under discussion, but about “the language” we’re using to talk about immigration. Apparently we’re weaponizing the language to make immigrants look bad… or something. It’s a strange line of attack to choose, particularly when it’s been liberals and progressives who have raised the practice of distorting words for their own purposes to an art form. There are clearly plenty of words and phrases to choose from...

DALTON, Ga. -- A worker at a Hispanic bakery said it was just a natural reaction when she bolted to the back of the building as soon as she saw a Dalton police cruiser pull into the parking lot. The woman's fear of law enforcement quickly subsided when Officer Abraham Chiesa entered the store and began talking with bakery workers in Spanish. As Officer Chiesa left, he gave police badge stickers to a group of children, and the bakery workers insisted he and his guests take slices of chocolate flan. Breaking the language barrier and gaining the trust of the...