Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
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manager: “You said that Eric was ‘fired.’ Hope that was just your pencil moving too fast. He wasn’t fired; He is a reduction in force.” ! -
So it goes. Within the Postal Service, employees may be "excessed out.” Their jobs revert. At IBM, the firing of employees at one time was management-initiated attrition.” Few companies fire, but many outplace.
The principal objection to euphemistic speech lies in the damage done to meaning. The specific yields to the general, and we get George Bush’s vision “thing.” Society abounds with ambiguous “problems.” A person who stutters has a “speech impairment.” A cripple is “differently abled.” ■; »
The presumption is that such cashmere delicacy warms the hearts of an affected group. The Indian will be pleased to know that, mysteriously, he is a “native American.” Workers will be comforted to learn that a Social Security deduction is not a tax, it’s a contribution.
The sagacious Hobbes, of “Calvin and Hobbes,” once speculated that by such devices “we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.” Hobbes had it just about right.
Copy write 1995
Universal Press Syndicate
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