Dan Gillmor, citizen journalism ninja and Silicon Valley watcher, in a widely-syndicated piece about the language of the occupy movement published last week, is hung up on the linguistic abuses of both sides of the occupy divide. He hates the euphemisms rolled out by government (‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ for ‘torture’, for instance) and urges occupiers to do better:

I realise the Occupy Wall Street folks have more pressing issues than asking the media to use precise and neutral language. But emotionally slanted language – even when it’s been widely used for decades – has helped the banksters and their allies profit so outrageously. If we’re going to take back our societies from the people who looted the economy, we need to use every honest means at our disposal. Language should be part of that strategy.

But his whole premise - that there’s a neutral language we should aspire to - is flakey. He proposes ‘profit’ as a better verb than ‘earn’, for instance, but both are so loaded as to make the distinction meaningless. What we should aspire to is honest language, open about our motives and desires - wherever we live on the occupy spectrum. What I hope for from occupy language is unhysterical, fair-minded and accepting of disagreement. It’s a tall order for anything calling itself a ‘movement’ but a worthy goal in the context of the slanted, hate-filled noise we get from much of the anti-occupy media.

Read the piece in The Guardian.