Emotive Conjugation

In a 1948 BBC Radio interview, British philosopher, mathematician, and generalist thinker Bertrand Russell talked about a rhetorical technique that many of us are familiar with, but maybe haven't isolated and labeled so that it's an identifiable and intentionally wieldable trick.

This concept, usually called "emotive conjugation" though sometimes called “Russell's conjugation,” involves using synonymous words and phrases to describe something in such a way that the listener or reader receives the emotional implications you want to imbue in whatever it is you're saying.

The most famous of the examples he provided during this interview goes like this:

"I am firm, you are obstinate, he or she is a pig-headed fool."

By describing the same trait in different ways, we can make it seem like an accolade, a hindrance, or a significant personality disorder.

Each of these descriptors refer to the same thing, but is loaded with emotion- or judgement-inducing baggage; that's the power of language, and when emotional implication is leveraged in this way, we can say things that—despite being truthful—are manipulative in overt or covert ways.

This technique is used by participants in formal debates, throughout our daily conversations—whether we realize it or not—and by folks in public office.

Consider that a freedom fighter, a rebel, and a terrorist is essentially the same thing, but viewed through a slightly different lens.

To hint is distinct from implying is distinct from insinuating, yet all three terms refer to basically the same action.

Confidence, cockiness, arrogance; care, caution, paranoia; elegant, concise, simplistic; calm, detached, lacking in empathy; I might pay homage, you might reference, and he might blatantly copy or rip-off.

This linguistic technique is worth understanding because it can help us avoid accidentally imbuing our own words with what amount to emotional mistranslations—saying something that's technically true, but accidentally, because of that injection of emotional resonance, not as accurate as we may have intended—but it's also helpful to be aware of how others might distort what they're saying to us, or to their tribe, or to the public at large, because it can provide us with a sense of their unspoken biases and intentions.