Linguistics; political language; relevant quote....
The August 27, 2007 New Yorker has an article by Nicholas Lemann titled "Rovian Ways" -- about Karl Rove, obviously -- on pp. 29-30. And this chunk on page 30 caught my eye, in the context of our current discussion, saying of Rove that...


"He was consistently better than the other side at reaching the groups that felt shut out of politics, usually through local organizing. There are plenty of these groups on the left as well as on the right, but Democrats have let the muscles needed to reach them grow slack. Organizing is hard, unglamorous work; the language it requires is combative, self-interested, and non-seigneurial."


What about those three words to describe the language required for organizing? "Non-seigneurial" is a new -- and clever, and non-ordinary -- label for what I've been calling "ordinary" language, and I agree with Lemann that that's required. I think that what he means by "self-interested" is language that attempts to persuade others to adopt attitudes and beliefs and policies that are important to the speaker personally, and I can see why that's needed. But I was surprised to see the word "combative" in that sentence. Maybe what Lemann means by it is something like "persistent," "unwilling to back down when resisted," "willing to keep trying one approach after another," or something of that kind...