Friday, November 25, 2011

The two most dishonest words in politics

When you start a sentence with either "Honestly" or "Frankly," it means you're going to follow up with something not so great about yourself--a confession of some shortcoming or misunderstanding or prediction that turned out to be wrong.

But at least 90% of the time when politicians start a sentence with either word, they're about to "confess" about some shortcoming of their opposition--not themselves. They're bragging or bashing. Never confessing.

Meaning it's not the words "Frankly" or "Honestly" that are so dishonest, but the way politicians misuse them to attack others.

As a Democrat I'd love to believe that mainly Republicans commit this moral and syntactical error.

But frankly I'm not sure.

No comments: