The aims of this dictionary are fourfold:
- to provide a set of consistent, precise, standard definitions to faciliate research;
- to enrich the vocabulary in common use when talking about public discourse;
- to collate in one place relevant concepts from multiple fields; and
- to help others with an interest in public discourse familiarise themselves with the literature more quickly.
Definitions are important to the extent that having a rich, common language is important, but arguments about the scope or use of particular terms are usually not productive. Where possible, I have modelled the definitions closely on those currently used by researchers, or written them to a corresponding level of formality. If there is disagreement in the literature about a definition, I have taken a pragmatic (and inherently somewhat opinionated) approach to resolving them. If needed, explanation of the origin of a term and its definition are included under the heading 'Origin + Context'. Links to relevant literature (including, if available, the original appearance of the term in its given form) are listed under 'Key References'.
The dictionary is currently a work-in-progress. Immediately below this paragraph is an tentative list of the terms I intend to include, followed by the entries that have been written already.
Please send feedback or suggestions to .
verb To communicate information without concern for whether or not it is true.
noun Information that is communicated without concern for whether or not it is true.
This definition is based on the discussion in ‘On bullshit’, a 1986 essay by philospher Harry Frankfurt. Frankfurt proposes that the essence of bullshit is a disregard for the truth.
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
Gerald Cohen (2012) has since argued that bullshit should be bullshit, regardless of the process by which it was created.
Bullshit as insincere talk or writing is indeed what it is because it is the product of something like bluffing, but talking nonsense is what it is because of the character of its output, and nonsense is not nonsense because of features of the nonsense-talker’s mental state.
If the goal is to find a definition of bullshit that fits with its everyday use, then this is a valid criticism. But for our purposes, we have stuck to the Frankfurtian definition, because there are other terms available to describe plain falsehoods and nonsense (eg. ‘falsehood’ and ‘nonsense’).
- Frankfurt, Harry (1986) ‘On bullshit’.
- Cohen, Gerald (2012) ‘Deeper into bullshit’.
noun Information that was initially formulated with the intent to deceive or harm.
This definition focuses on original intent rather than truth status: the information could be false, or true but misleading.
‘Canard’ originally comes from French, in which it is also the word for ‘duck’. Etymologies vary for the meaning defined here. Perhaps the most likely is that it originates with the French idiom ‘vendre un canard à moitié’, which translates literally as ‘to half-sell a duck’ but means to trick people with information that is technically true but misleading. Wiktionary speculates that this idiom originates in a folk story.
A [seller of live ducks] is successful and content as the only duck seller on a street, selling his ducks for eight francs each. A new duck seller moves in across the street who steals all the business by offering his ducks for seven francs each. Then a price war ensues, back and forth, until the new duck seller is down to three francs for a duck. The original duck seller is beside himself with worry and frustration, but finally he puts up a big sign that says, ‘Two francs’ and then in small print at the bottom ‘for half a duck.’
noun Information that is both
- false, and
- communicated with the intent to deceive or harm.
- Wardle, Claire + Derakhshan, Hossein (2017) ‘Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making’.
noun A failure mode of group decision-making characterised by the following symptoms:
- Invulnerabilityan illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks;
- Rationalecollective efforts to rationalize in order to discount warnings which might lead the members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions;
- Moralityan unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions;
- Stereotypesstereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to defeat their purposes;
- Pressuredirect pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members;
- Self-censorshipself-censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member’s inclination to minimize to himself the importance of his doubts and counterarguments;
- Unanimitya shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view (partly reulting from self-censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent);
- Mindguardsthe emergence of self-appointed mindguards—members who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.
The eight symptoms listed above are taken verbatim from Irving Janis’ 1971 book, ‘Victims of groupthink’.
- Janis, Irving (1971) ‘Groupthink’.
- Janis, Irving (1972) ‘Victims of groupthink’.
noun An umbrella term for misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.
- Wardle, Claire + Derakhshan, Hossein (2017) ‘Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making’.
noun A risk that arises from the dissemination or the potential dissemination of true information that may cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm.
- Bostrom, Nick (2011) ‘Information Hazards: A Typology of Potential Harms from Knowledge’.
noun Information that is both
- true, and
- communicated with the intent to deceive or harm.
- Wardle, Claire + Derakhshan, Hossein (2017) ‘Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making’.
noun Information that is both
- false, and
- not communicated with the intent to deceive or harm.
- Wardle, Claire + Derakhshan, Hossein (2017) ‘Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making’.
noun A pasquinade.
noun A short section of prose or verse that is
- satirical,
- public, and
- usually anonymous.
The term comes from the ‘Pasquino’, a statue in Rome that was used in the 16th century as a public noticeboard for such commentary.
- Spaeth, John (1939) ‘Martial and the Pasquinade’.
noun Bullshit that is meaningless but presented as if it is meaningful and true.
- Pennycook, Gordon et al. (2015) ‘On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit’.