{"id":6197,"date":"2014-05-16T10:35:10","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T17:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myuctv.tv\/?p=6197"},"modified":"2014-05-16T10:35:10","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T17:35:10","slug":"27932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/uctv\/27932\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Elephant in the Room"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/uctv.tv\/shows\/The-Elephant-in-the-Room-The-Psychology-of-Innuendo-and-Euphemism-27932\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6168\" alt=\"27931\" src=\"http:\/\/uctv.tv\/images\/\/thumbnails\/27932.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a>Despite its frequent appearance in our everyday speech, indirectness is not something many people pause to consider. Why <i>do<\/i> people &#8220;beat around the bush&#8221;? &#8220;Downsize&#8221; instead of &#8220;terminate?&#8221; &#8220;Pass away&#8221; instead of &#8220;die?&#8221; What prompts people to say one thing, when both parties in the conversation know that there is another meaning?<\/p>\n<p>Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, <a href=\"http:\/\/stevenpinker.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Pinker<\/a>, explains the phenomenon of indirect speech in this entertaining discussion that&#8217;s part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/uctv.tv\/gradcouncil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures<\/a> series.<\/p>\n<p>Pinker is a world renowned writer on language, mind, and human nature. His work on the psychology of language has won numerous awards and is recognized in many national science and psychological societies.<\/p>\n<p>Check out what he has to say about the paradoxical appeal of euphemism, innuendo, politeness, and other forms of shilly-shallying, in <a href=\"http:\/\/uctv.tv\/shows\/The-Elephant-in-the-Room-The-Psychology-of-Innuendo-and-Euphemism-27932\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Elephant in the Room: The Psychology of Innuendo and Euphemism<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite its frequent appearance in our everyday speech, indirectness is not something many people pause to consider. Why do people &#8220;beat around the bush&#8221;? &#8220;Downsize&#8221; instead of &#8220;terminate?&#8221; &#8220;Pass away&#8221; instead of &#8220;die?&#8221; What prompts people to say one thing, when both parties in the conversation know that there is another meaning? Harvard College Professor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}