Weasel word

{{bronze}}[[image:least weasel.jpg|thumb|right|165px|A weasel. Kind of cute, actually. Deceitfully cute...? Some people might say so.]]{{logicnav}}{{cquote|Some argue that the use of weasel words is both [[vague]] and [[deceit]]ful — a [[appeal to authority|view that is shared by most experts]]. A recent landmark study at a leading university has since [[Argumentum ad populum|confirmed these suspicions in the eyes of many]]. Critics claim that most people likely employ weasel words all the time, [[Hanlon's razor|often without even realizing it]], and questions have been raised as to the likelihood of this occuring even when writing an article on weasel words. Thankfully, experience has shown such concerns to be unfounded.|||[[Irony|See what we did there]]?<ref>In case you didn't — kindly compare that quote to {{wpl|Weasel word#Forms|the following list of examples|.}}</ref>}}
'''Weasel words''', also known as '''anonymous authorities''', denote the use of ambiguous words and phrases intended to create the false impression that a vague or meaningless statement is, to the contrary, both specific and informative. In a sense, weasel words basically amount to an obscured [[appeal to authority]] in which the identity of ''the very authority being appealed to'' isn't even made clear by the appealer.

While weasel words may ''seem'' authoritative in their apparent support of a given point (or product), a closer look reveals that weasel words provide no actual strength to an argument whatsoever — ironically, when properly identified, even ''weakening'' any argument of which they were a part.

The allure of using weasel words lies in the possibility that they go ''undetected as such'',{{efn|Much like ''real'' weasels do. <small><small>The sneaky bastards.</small></small>}} thus allowing them to [[Logical fallacy|fallaciously]] lend ''the pretense'' of depth to the vagueries in question. As such, weasel words can be employed strategically (in order to [[William Lane Craig|deceive outright]]) via attempting to obfuscate the ''otherwise apparent'' [[burden of proof]] which rests on a given speaker — expertly, with [[Equivocation|plausible deniability of the ''very presence'' of said weasel words]] left intact.

A common form of weasel words are those that make a claim ''appear'' widely accepted (''[[Argumentum ad populum]]'') by merely ''implying'' that it is (e.g. "Most people agree…"). For example, the claim could be made that "X is widely considered to be Y" — ''widely considered'' being the key phrase here. True or not, the statement itself provides no meaningful information whatsoever as to ''who'' considers X to be Y, ''to which extent'' X is considered to be Y, nor indeed ''how widely'' X is considered to be Y.

Another form of weasel words involves making a statement that sounds significant but really does not mean much ([[deepity]]). Cereal brands that tell you that they are "part of a balanced breakfast" imply that their products are healthy, when in [[reality]], they have little nutritional value on their own.  And we've all heard the story of the [[Walmart]]/[[McDonald's]] cashier who says s/he "handles transactions for a Fortune 500 company".

==Etymology==
It has been suggested{{efn|The irony of this statement is not lost on us.}} that the phrase originates from the folk-belief that weasels snuck up to [[bird]] eggs and [[Abortion|carefully sucked out their contents]],{{efn|This, ''despite'' weasels not having the necessary 
[[Planned Parenthood]]
 mandibles for such a procedure.}} leaving naught but the empty shell behind.

Regardless, [[Wikipedia]] elucidates the obvious connection to ''other'' qualities 
unfairly
 {{wpl|Weasel words#Origin|traditionally associated with weasels|:}}
{{quotebox|Definitions of the word 'weasel' that imply deception and irresponsibility include these: the noun form, referring to a sneaky, untrustworthy, or insincere person; the verb form, meaning to manipulate shiftily; and the phrase "to ''weasel out''", meaning "to squeeze one's way out of something" or "to evade responsibility".}}

==Examples==
*"They say…" Who and how many said it, and what do [[they]] know? Why is it important? Was the statement based in fact? What do they say about those who don't say it?
*Saying "I saw an article that debunks climate change!", without actually linking the article, meaning that the claims of the supposed article can't be verified or debunked. Even if brought up in good faith, such a claim may be subject to [[confabulation]].
*"Some argue that [[atheism]] partly stems from a failure to fairly and judiciously consider the facts," while ignoring who those "some" are and how many they are (though in fairness, the answer would probably turn out to be way too many).
*"Some scholars believe…" Who are these scholars, and ''how'' many of them are there? Even if they're in the majority, why default to [[argumentum ad populum]]? Is their belief based in fact? What do the scholars who don't believe XYZ have to say? 
*"Probably the most common form of…" While not mentioning how probable the statement is.
*"Save up to 50% or more." You won't save more than 50%. You won't save 50%. You probably won't save more than 20%. In fact, full retail prices may have been marked up before being marked down, so you may end up spending more on a "sale" item than you would have before the sale.
**Various GEICO commercials have proffered that "15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance."
***"15 minutes" refers to the 15 minutes it nominally takes to sign up for GEICO online or over the phone, though this is not really a guarantee that it will take that little time.
***Note that the verbiage is "could save," not "will save." You might not even save at all. 
***It's never mentioned what other insurance companies GEICO is cheaper than. 
*"Is [[President Obama]] really a [[Fun:Barack HUSSEIN Obama|radical Muslim socialist]] who hates [[United States|America]]?" [[Just asking questions|Making an accusation in the form of a question]] is a [[Glenn Beck|popular technique]]. See [[Betteridge's law]]
*"Linked to" or "has links to". This could mean ''anything'' or, more usually, nothing. In science, it can mean a spurious correlation, which [[causalation|does not necessarily mean causation]]. This verbiage is useful when painting a [[conspiracy theory]], and could simply mean that an individual has familial connections to someone else, or that a company owns a small share of another company's stock.
*Some common weasel words in supplement and [[food woo]]:
**Vague claims that a product "[[detox]]ifies the body" without mentioning what types of toxins it removes, or how they are removed. 
**Use of terms that aren't as strongly regulated in the United States, such as "may provide relief" instead of "cures". 
**Mentioning that a food or supplement is [[Appeal to nature|''natural.'']] This doesn't mean it works, or even that it's perfectly safe.
**Claiming that a product "supports a healthy immune system." This can be included along with the [[quack Miranda warning]], or with claims of clinical research in its favor. 
***Keep in mind that including some Vitamin C is often all you need to get away with this claim. 
***Also keep in mind that the terminology used is "supports," not "boosts" or "strengthens." 
***Furthermore, a stronger immune system is not always a good thing. An overactive immune system will attack the rest of your body, and doctors may actually suppress the immune system altogether as a small price to pay for an aggressive autoimmune disease. 
***This verbiage looks appealing when you're buying a supplement to treat a cold or flu. Coincidentally, if you take the sugar pills known as [[oscillococcinum]], you might assume they helped you get over that cold, when you might have fought it anyway thanks to, you guessed it, '''your immune system!'''
*"Processed food", without detailing which processes.
*Studies show that if someone says "studies show" before a statement, people will believe them, even if they don't say where the studies came from (or if better studies refute the claim).
*"It has been suggested that…" Who suggested that, and what is their evidence for doing so?
*"Classed as" is a frequent offender, when used without proper checks of how the thing being discussed is legally or scientifically classified or defined. It often means little more than the writer's opinion. See also: [https://www.xkcd.com/1475 ''technically'']. 
**An example of this type of usage occurred when police claimed a person otherwise lawfully exercising during the 2021 UK Coronavirus lockdown could not carry a hot drink, as this was 'classed as a picnic'. There was no law in force specifically prohibiting either picnics or drinks, or mentioning these things.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-55594244 Covid: Fines reviewed after women 'surrounded by police'], ''BBC'' 8 January 2021</ref>
*In advertising, it is common to spin a meaningless, obvious, or negative fact into a positive claim using careful phrasing. For example:
**"Genuine leather" sounds like a mark of quality: a promise that real leather was used. However, some of this leather is ironically artificially refinished. In any case, "genuine" here does not mean "high-quality." Higher quality leather is generally labeled more specifically, as either top-grain leather (made from the top of the hide) or full-grain leather (made from the whole hide). (The claim that "genuine leather" is a specific grade of leather is internet folklore, though.)
**Just because a cereal is "part of a balanced breakfast" doesn't mean it contributes much nutritional value to said breakfast. It most certainly doesn't mean you should eat it.
**If an infomercial boasts that a kitchen utensil "cleans in a quick rinse", they're likely indirectly admitting it isn't dishwasher-safe. If it was dishwasher-safe, they'd mention that instead
**In real estate, "well-maintained" can mean the house was poorly built, therefore requiring excessive maintenance. The statement that a house is in a "good neighborhood" mentions nothing about the house itself. An "efficient kitchen" might be too big for more than one cook.
**Angus is the most common variety of beef cattle in the US, though it's often advertised as if it were a premium breed. 
**Casinos often have slogans along the lines of "if you don't play, you won't win." You won't lose either.
**"Made in the USA" doesn't tell you anything about how the product was made, and clothes made in [[sweatshop]]s in [[Northern Mariana Islands|Saipan]] have been labeled with this sticker.
*** Ditto for sweatshops in Italy run by Chinese-Italians.
**"Create a free account!" Creating the account may be free, but to do anything with it you'll probably need to pay money. This is common for dating services.
*"Most scholars today believe Jesus existed" actually contains at least five weasel words:
*#Crucially, it doesn't mention ''what kind'' ([[Baraminology|no pun intended]]) of "scholars" we're talking about. However, as used by [[Christian apologetics|apologists]] (for instance, [[William Lane Craig]] loves to use this line in both his [[Resurrection of Jesus|resurrection]] and "Does God Exist?" debates), it almost certainly refers to "[[New Testament]] scholars" (i.e. [[Christianity|Christian]] [[Theology|theologians]]). A majority of this group agreeing that Jesus existed is about as surprising as a majority of [[Religious leaders#Islam|imams]] agreeing that [[Muhammad]] really was the prophet of [[Allah]] and made [[Muhammad#Miraculous journey|a miraculous night journey]] to [[Jerusalem]]. The relevant "scholars" to ask would actually be [[History|historians]], but they tend not to give the kind of answers that apologists want to hear. 
*#Another weasel word is "most". As historical questions, such as the existence of Jesus, can't always be settled conclusively due to the lack and/or the character of the evidence (an especially pertinent issue in the case of Jesus), there is often a large scope for legitimate disagreement. Thus if "most" means 55% or even 75% of experts (and here we're assuming that these experts are historians rather than theologians or apologists), this would still rate the existence of Jesus as a quite controversial subject. And if such proportions of theologians (who can be expected to be biased ''in favor'' of Christianity) held such opinions, the apologist's case would actually be even weaker. Anything less than an overwhelming (something like >90%) consensus among <u>historians</u> is problematic for an apologist using the reference to what "most scholars" think about Jesus' existence to argue that it is a settled question.
*#"[[Belief|Believe]]" is also quite [[Fallacy of ambiguity|ambiguous]] when discussing such an intersection of scholarly concerns and religion. A historian will use "believe" in the sense that this is the scenario they find most plausible, given the state of the evidence (as evaluated through the historical method). However, especially if the "scholars" referred to are theologians, "believe" could actually mean religious belief, which is the topic under question, and thus citing the religious beliefs of others will get an apologist nowhere with an audience who does not [[Preaching to the choir|already share the apologist's belief]] ("I believe God exists and this is reasonable because these theologians also believe in God"). Alternatively, "believe" could also be the rather mundane sense of "guessing" with a more or less solid basis for the guess (as in "I believe it's going to rain today"). This problem is analogous to the silly "Science is also a belief, just like religion" line, which rests on a similar conflation of the various meanings of "believe/belief" that some of the more 
insane
 inane [[Creationism|creationists]] will occasionally try their hand at.
*#The fourth weasel word is "[[Jesus]]", because it doesn't distinguish between a [[Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ|historical Jesus]] and the clearly unhistorical/mythological/fictional Jesus of the [[New Testament]]. While it might be possible to get most <u>historians</u> to agree that "a guy named ''Yeshua'' born in Bethlehem" existed and inspired the tall tales of the New Testament, this is ''not'' the same as affirming the embellished stories and divinity itself. The apologist probably won't care too much about this distinction and instead bet on conflating these two Jesuses and hope that the audience will do so too (through a variant of [[confirmation bias]]). A parallel is William Lane Craig's waffling on/conflation of "a [[god]]" and [[YHWH|"God"]].
*#The fifth and final weasel word is "existed". See "Jesus" above. Technically, this claim also includes the possibility of quite different interpretations of [[Historical Jesus#Jesus of when?|''when'']] this Jesus walked around, who his father was, or what kind of existence we're talking about (a rather [[Sophistry|"liberal interpretation"]] could even claim that an entirely mythical Jesus definitely "existed" as a fictional story told in the New Testament).
* Though popular in [[theological]] circles and in "scientific" journals, the {{wpl|passive voice}} all-too-often generates weasel-word vagueness, avoiding identifying a source or an agent.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Smith
 |first1               = Jonathan C.
 |date                 = 5 September 2017
 |orig-date            = 2010
 |chapter              = Sloppy Language
 |title                = Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=YGLpCgAAQBAJ
 |series               = CourseSmart Series
 |edition              = 2
 |publication-place    = Chichester, West Sussex
 |publisher            = John Wiley & Sons
 |publication-date     = 2017
 |page                 = 80
 |isbn                 = 9781119029359
 |access-date          = 8 June 2024
 |quote                = Some [weasel words] incorporate the passive voice to avoid identifying a source or responsible person ('it is claimed that ... it is well-known that ...')
}}
</ref> Passive constructions may promote casual [[magical thinking]] (for example: "profit is produced", "the pyramids were built", "grace was granted", "the active ingredient has been isolated in laboratories"...).

==See also==
*[[Code word]]
*[[Deceit]]
*[[Fox News#Disguised opinion|Disguised opinion]]
*[[Euphemism]]
*[[Hearsay]]
*[[Intellectual dishonesty]]
*[[Sound science]]
*[[Vagueness]]

==Not to be confused with==
*[[Dawkins weasel]]

==External links==
*{{wpa|Weasel word}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20030202005553/http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/anon.htm "Anonymous Authorities"], Stephen Downes
*[http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/authority_4.htm "Appeal to Anonymous Authority"], Austin Cline

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{logfal}}
[[Category:Fallacious arguments]]
[[Category:Propaganda]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Appeals to authority]]

Categories: Fallacious arguments, Propaganda, Language, Appeals to authority