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Alicorn comments on Unpacking the Concept of "Blackmail" - Less Wrong
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Comments (136)
I really wish "blackmail" were not used to mean extortion.
I had the same reaction, thinking blackmail is a special form of extortion in which the threat is a threat of exposure. But when I sought support from the dictionary, I was disappointed
Dictionaries are histories of usage; not arbiters of meaning. If they were, language would not change in meaning (only add new words) from the moment the first dictionaries were made.
See here
That is surprising. It seems that using 'blackmail' to refer to extortion isn't even a corruption of the original use.
Indeed, we have this account of the etymology from George MacDonald Fraser's The Steel Bonnets:
Note that he does consider the modern meaning to be more specialized.
They are certainly used synonymously often enough to get into the dictionary that way. I didn't say it was wrong, I said I wish it weren't used that way.
Sorry, it's already prevailing terminology.
If you have a case for why it is bad for 'blackmail' to mean 'extortion' (ie you can demonstrate that precision is desirable or something) then make the case. If it's a good case (I expect it will be; 4 karma points on a new-ish article at time of this comment suggests it is widely recognised) then people - most definitely me included - will start making the distinction you wish for.
(This is how language - prevailing terminology - changes! Ain't it cool?)
In general, I think synonyms are bad. It's a waste of vocabulary to have two words that mean the same thing in the same language unless there is something meaningfully different about them (connotation, scope, flavor, nuance, something). When "blackmail" just means "extortion", and not a kind of extortion (the threat to reveal incriminating information), the words become synonyms, instead of one of them being a special case of the other.
Yes, I have a similar rule. "Disinterested" has been used to mean "uninterested" for all of its history IIRC, but I support efforts to stop using it that way and keep it for its distinct meaning of "with no stake in the outcome" because synonyms are wasteful.
I agree in principle, but in practice I fudge this when the meaning is clear from context, because I hate the rhythm of "uninterested". (I use "not interested" instead when I can, but sometimes it sounds more graceful to use "disinterested", and sometimes I do it. Maybe I should try harder to stop.)
Agreed. From now on I will use blackmail to refer to extortion involving the threat to reveal incriminations, and if I encounter confusion, I will either direct them to this discussion or use rhetoric / appeal to my own authority to convince them of the truth of my position, depending on which I judge to have the better chance of actually convincing them.
Sorry to be so formal and spell it all out, but I just recently worked this unconscious process out and I am bursting with enthusiasm to share it!
(Note that the field of linguistics uses the phrase 'perfect synonym' to refer to what you mean by synonym, and when they say synonym they allow possible variances of nuance. Note also that I think their definitions are not in touch with the definitions for 'synonym' that people actually use, so more fool them.)
So "synonym" in common usage is an perfect synonym for "perfect synonym"?
Hahahahaha - yes!
Not at all, it's nifty. I'm sort of tickled to have discovered someone who will use words how I want them if I explain why they should.
Do most people not do that? In my experience if I tell people not to do certain things (as long as the things aren't too ridiculous-- I have no expectation that anyone would stop breathing because KATYDEE COMMANDS IT), they stop doing those things, or at least stop doing them around me. There are some irritating exceptions-- the number of people who respond "Why?" to "Be quiet" or "Don't talk to me" is staggeringly high-- but by and large people tend to respect such preferences in my experience.
I wouldn't have been uncommonly impressed if shokwave had agreed to use "blackmail" and "extortion" as I prefer while talking to me (although the local context makes that sort of acquiescence less likely than it would be in most social groups, I think). But the great-grandparent seems to indicate a commitment to use the words the way I like them in all contexts and to go so far as to evangelize my linguistic beliefs.
Most people will indeed adopt different terminology, given a good reason; it's just that some people have extensive experience of others not complying with such requests because the reasons are ridiculous, and then infer such rejection to be a more general phenomenon.
Example:
A: [Activity X] will tend to make you more sexually attractive to [group Y] because of [mechanism Z].
B: You shouldn't say that because it's offensive to Ys and treats them like non-persons mindlessly responding to X, and I don't like that. And I don't like X, either.
C: Are you insane? I can't ignore real-world social phenomena that affect my life like what A described, just because it offends you and you have unusual preferences. Try to think about how others might feel.
B: Bah! Blast these terrorists who won't listen to the voice of reason! Where can I find less defective people?
Anyway, it depends on how much variance of nuance you want to allow. (Does the fact that extortion is Latinate and blackmail is Germanic count for anything?) I've seen a claim that no language has truly perfect synonyms (i.e. two words such that P(X|someone says word1) = P(X|someone says word2) for all X in all circumstances), which might well be true, but which would make the phrase perfect synonym useless.