Thursday, January 7, 2016

North Korea: H-bomb and bombast

For edification and entertainment I recommend the blog "Without Bullshit," recommended by a friend who is a communications professor at the University of Texas. The blogger is Josh Bernoff, an author who comes by his skills via a career in business writing. His books are "Groundswell," "Empowered," and "The Mobile Mind Shift"

Blog Principles:

"Bullshit is any form of communication that does not communicate accurately and clearly. This includes any of the following (regrettably, this is not a complete list):"

outright lies
words intended to confuse
obfuscation: overuse of jargon or other constructions that hide meaning
passive voice and other constructions that hide the actors in a piece of writing
overuse of meaningless qualifying words (e.g., “generally,” “very,” “deeply”)
opinions presented as statements of fact
statistics presented without sources, out of context, or in a misleading way
vague connections presented as significant, for example, use of “linked to”
vague predictions presented as common knowledge, for example, use of “expected to”
citing one or two instances of anything as if they represent a universal pattern