Από την Guardian της 22/3/2011:
Επίσης:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07FOB-onlanguage-t.html
http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/lmfz.htm
Από το άρθρο της ΝYT:
Μας καλύπτει στα ελληνικά η μεταφορική χρήση της οπτικής;
[SIZE=+1]Lexicon of war has a new buzzword[/SIZE]
Every modern conflict seems to throw up some new military-speak. The latest is 'optics'
From collateral damage to friendly fire and from axis of evil to mission creep, the language of war and diplomacy tends to attract jargon and euphemism as a battlefield attracts flies.
And the buzzword of the Libyan saga so far appears to be optics - as used by unnamed ministers who have admitted that "the emotional optics of cruise missiles raining down, backed by coalition military briefings, [have] unwelcome echoes of Iraq".
Elsewhere, others have warned against "the optics of waging war in another Arab state after the Iraq fiasco", and reached for "the optics of consensus".
So what does optics mean? Put simply, it appears to be political shorthand for public perception; how the man in the street sees the strategies and actions of the powerful.
Like so many buzzwords, optics seems to have originated in Washington, presumably deep inside the Beltway.
In September 2009, the late US journalist William Safire noted that "'optics' is hot, rivalling content".
Its usage, however, is older even than that. An article in the New York Times magazine last year traced the phrase back to the tail end of the 70s.
On 31 May 1978, the Wall Street Journal quoted Jimmy Carter's special counsellor on inflation, Robert Strauss, as saying that business leaders who went along with Carter's anti-inflation measures might be invited to the White House as a token of appreciation.
"It would be a nice optical step," Strauss said. The Journal was not impressed by the idea: the following day, an editorial rebuffed Strauss's overtures with the line "Optics will not cure inflation."
According to the author of an article in the Boston Globe almost three years ago, the continuing appeal of optics lies in its "associative resonance".
The word, Jan Freeman wrote, "invokes a whole set of tech-and-science terms like 'physics,' 'statistics' and 'tectonics', as well as Greek-derived high-concept nouns like 'hermeneutics', 'aesthetics' and 'pragmatics', all with an aura of brainy precision."
To the public, though, the frequent deployment of optics may end up having the opposite effect, smacking as it does of looking through a glass, darkly rather than through something clean and transparent.
Every modern conflict seems to throw up some new military-speak. The latest is 'optics'
From collateral damage to friendly fire and from axis of evil to mission creep, the language of war and diplomacy tends to attract jargon and euphemism as a battlefield attracts flies.
And the buzzword of the Libyan saga so far appears to be optics - as used by unnamed ministers who have admitted that "the emotional optics of cruise missiles raining down, backed by coalition military briefings, [have] unwelcome echoes of Iraq".
Elsewhere, others have warned against "the optics of waging war in another Arab state after the Iraq fiasco", and reached for "the optics of consensus".
So what does optics mean? Put simply, it appears to be political shorthand for public perception; how the man in the street sees the strategies and actions of the powerful.
Like so many buzzwords, optics seems to have originated in Washington, presumably deep inside the Beltway.
In September 2009, the late US journalist William Safire noted that "'optics' is hot, rivalling content".
Its usage, however, is older even than that. An article in the New York Times magazine last year traced the phrase back to the tail end of the 70s.
On 31 May 1978, the Wall Street Journal quoted Jimmy Carter's special counsellor on inflation, Robert Strauss, as saying that business leaders who went along with Carter's anti-inflation measures might be invited to the White House as a token of appreciation.
"It would be a nice optical step," Strauss said. The Journal was not impressed by the idea: the following day, an editorial rebuffed Strauss's overtures with the line "Optics will not cure inflation."
According to the author of an article in the Boston Globe almost three years ago, the continuing appeal of optics lies in its "associative resonance".
The word, Jan Freeman wrote, "invokes a whole set of tech-and-science terms like 'physics,' 'statistics' and 'tectonics', as well as Greek-derived high-concept nouns like 'hermeneutics', 'aesthetics' and 'pragmatics', all with an aura of brainy precision."
To the public, though, the frequent deployment of optics may end up having the opposite effect, smacking as it does of looking through a glass, darkly rather than through something clean and transparent.
Επίσης:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07FOB-onlanguage-t.html
http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/lmfz.htm
Από το άρθρο της ΝYT:
I asked Stefan Dollinger, a lexicographer at the University of British Columbia who is leading a revision of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, why this might be. Dollinger pointed out that bilingual Canadians would be familiar with a similar French term, optique. In standard French, optique can refer to the science of optics or it can mean “perspective, point of view.” Beyond those core meanings, optique has been extended to visual appearances in general (much like the German equivalent Optik). Canadian-French usage adds a more politically focused angle, which seems to have been imported across the bilingual divide.
Μας καλύπτει στα ελληνικά η μεταφορική χρήση της οπτικής;
