Pixelated Semantics

No beauty for father

The ABC reports that "mother" is the most beautiful word in the English language, followed by "passion", "smile", "love" and "eternity", according to a worldwide survey. However, the "choices" were made from a list of 70 words - and not freely proposed by those surveyed. A standout example perhaps of how, firstly, to obtain the results one wants from research by restricting the field of view, and secondly, to use the resulting media publicity to promote one's objectives (while using the results to validate the objective). There are also probably numerous inferences that could be made from the fact that the word "father" was not on the list, while "hen's night", "banana", "kangaroo" and "oi" were - a bias the BBC politely reflects with their observation that some words were "unusual choices". The "survey" was conducted by the British Council, a UK government agency that "promotes British culture around the globe" - and the 70 words are apparently "a number deliberately chosen to mark the [their] 70th anniversary." It is also mildly interesting that the English news agency mentioned "kangaroo" while the Australian broadcaster did not. According to a press release, the Council was established "in the early 1930s as an instrument to counter Nazi and Fascist propaganda overseas", demonstrating its origins as an instrument of pyschological warfare. Perhaps old missions die hard in some cases.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 2:12 pm ::