"Was it something they said?"

 Michael Sean Winters has an interesting article on the NCR site today: Can Democrats learn to speak like normal people? | National Catholic Reporter

He writes about the necessity for the Democratic Party to form a coalition.  "The fight for the soul of the Democratic Party continues to percolate, mostly beneath the surface, as Democratic leaders try and discern a way forward. The party must ask itself: How did we lose to Donald Trump? How can we win in rural states again, without which, we will never secure a majority in the Senate? Most immediately, Democrats need to figure out how to take back the House of Representatives in next year's midterms."

"One group of centrist Democrats, the organization Third Way, recently published a very important and valuable white paper about one of the Democrats' major problems: They speak about issues in ways that turn voters off. The white paper, entitled "Was It Something I Said?" usefully collects a series of words or phrases that people on the left use and shouldn't."  

"...Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying," the paper says. "The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. "

"...Third Way looks at the reasons people employ such words. Democrats, they say, "use it because plain, authentic language that voters understand often rebounds badly among many activists and advocacy organizations. These activists and advocates may take on noble causes, but in doing so they often demand compliance with their preferred messages; that is how 'birthing person' became a stand-in for mother or mom." That hits one nail on the head, but there are other nails."

I should mention here that of course Democrats aren't the only ones who use an "in-group" manner of speaking, with catch phrases which resonate with people inside their group, but not so much with those on the outside.  We could fill a book with "MAGA speak".  But the people the Democrats need to connect with aren't the hard core MAGAs.  It is the swing voters.  

Let's take a look at some of the words and phrases on the Third Way article.  I find that they paint with a very broad brush, and some of the words they mention are actually useful.  But some of them are eye-roll eliciting, and likely to turn off the listeners before they actually hear the message. Here are some, both good and bad examples:  privilege, othering, Overton Window, body shaming, critical theory, housing insecurity, pregnant people, chest feeding, cisgender, Latinx, and intersectionality.  

It seems to me to be important to use common sense.  If a phrase is used in a condescending and arrogant way, such as "check your privilege", they are guaranteed to turn off the hearer right off the bat.  The same goes for phrases that distort reality in a mind bending way, such as "pregnant person", or "chest feeding". In bending over backwards to use phrases preferred by activists and advocates, they risk seeming to erase another group, such as actual biological women.  

I would say there are fewer words on the Third Way list which are actually offensive, than ones which have meaning mainly to academics, or seem to be made up.  Such as Latinx, which doesn't exist in the Spanish language. It is supposed to be pronounced "Latineks", but most people see it as "Latinks".

Some of the words I think are actually useful, such as Overton Window.  But that is rather academic, and people may not know what it means.  And a phrase such as "housing insecure"  is descriptive.  "Homeless" connotes someone who is unsheltered except for perhaps a tent or a shelter.  "Housing insecure" could mean someone who is living in their brother-in-law's basement, in a precarious situation. And "body shaming", I think we all know what that means, and it is descriptive.

The take-away from the Third Way list, is to communicate in a meaningful way, and know what it is you are actually trying to convey.