[WikiEN-l] Viajero/Zero and Lance6 - POV terms

[Ray Saintonge]

S. Vertigo wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>Calling this squad terrorists, 
>>calling their act murder, presuming that the squad
>>was from Al-Aqsa... all seem 
>>to be strategies to inflame the issue with
>>unverified facts.
>>    
>>
>
>...Hence 'disruption,' which appears aimed toward
>sabotaging progress. I dont think thats entirely the
>case here; the term 'terrorist' is inapropriate as a
>primary descriptor; but much of American political
>rhetoric uses it. If I replace the term terrorist with
>militant, am I farting in the wind, or will I receive
>some support? This is a general editorial-type
>decision with regard to what terms are NPOV. 
>
>To my knowlege, an 'editorial decision process' about
>anything (other than the general concept of NPOV) let
>alone what terms to avoid has yet to be tried here. It
>should be; we should have an editorial board that sets
>some journalistic NPOV standards. Heck, even the
>Reuters article that Lance6 was quoting was just
>mostly an up to the minute hack job.
>
>S
>  
>
Setting up some kind of weaponry seems "militant" (or "military") enough 
for me.  In a Quebec French context it has come to be applied to any 
active supporter of a political party.  I tend to object when that use 
is transferred into English.  In the context of the current dispute it's 
at least worth trying.  "Militant" can probably be more easily 
circumscribed than "terrorist".  Zero's term was "gunmen", and that too 
is relatively neutral.  The concept of a good militant is as easily 
envisioned as that of a bad militant, and perhaps that is what makes it 
more acceptable.  On the other hand the idea of a good terrorist would 
be a pretty hard sell.

The level of support a person gets on anything here is unpredictable.  
Speaking for myself, I would not have commented but for the fact that 
the matter appeared in the mailing list.  I just don't hang out at the 
Israel/Palestine articles.  Most of us don't.

I like the idea of a list of tabooed words.  People tend not to 
understand words very well, and it gets worse when a controversial 
subject is involved.  Understanding that a word has connotations in 
addition to its denotaions can be hard to get across.  This episode led 
me to dig up my copy of Stuart Chase's "The Tyranny of Words", 
originally published in 1938.  He relates the story of asking about 200 
people what they thought the word "fascism" meant, and how dramatically 
different the answers were, though most had negative connotations.  It 
includes "Government in the interest of the majority for the purpose of 
accomplishingthings democracy cannot do" or "A govenmentwhere you can 
live comfortably if you never disagree with it" or "A form of government 
where socialism is used to perpetuate capitalism". 

Ec