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LEE TORDA, PhD
200 Maxwell Library Bridgewater State University ltorda@bridgew.edu lee.torda@gmail.com www.leetorda.com Fall 2023 Office Hours for Students M (in-person) 3:15-4:15 W (Zoom) 4:00-5:30 Click here to attend Zoom office hours |
From The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, an excerpt from his blog post "Christopher Michael-Martinez's Father Gets It Right" . . .
The war against euphemism and cliché matters not because we can guarantee that eliminating them will help us speak nothing but the truth but, rather, because eliminating them from our language is an act of courage that helps us get just a little closer to the truth. Clear speech takes courage. Every time we tell the truth about a subject that attracts a lot of lies, we advance the sanity of the nation. Plain speech matters because when we speak clearly we are more likely to speak truth than when we retreat into slogan and euphemism; avoiding euphemism takes courage because it almost always points plainly to responsibility. |