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Comment by andrei_says_ | Hacker News Reader

I think you'll enjoy this lecture by linguistics professor George Lakoff: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9R9MtkpqM

Among other things he speaks of the think-tank-driven concerted effort to influence political support by using language invoking specific metaphors to frame important issues.

Like "Tax Relief" for dramatically reducing taxes for the rich etc.

Changed how I process political speech and pretty much any media-supported narrative.

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In the same vein, Orwell's Politics and the English Language[1] is an earlier observation of similar phenomena.

[1] https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

I was just going to reference this. He was a master on the power of words, in both explaining it (as in your reference) and showing it in 1984 and Animal Farm.

I recommend also Lakoff's book "Don't think of an elephant"

I thought it is a good story how rethoric and framing is used nowadays in politics.

Lakoff and framing seemed to be in the air around 2003 or 2004, and it was a very good development.

And then everyone forgot it, or maybe were encouraged to forget it.

Thank you for this link. More and more I am appreciating this guy's research. Have never seen him speak, what a natural speaker, very enjoyable as well as edifying.

Never meet your heroes. I was a big fan of his work before taking a class with him. He's the rockstar of the cogsci department at Berkeley but he's known as a massive ego and a poor professor.

I took one of Lakoff's classes in 1987 and found his work to be compelling. Metaphors We Live By should be required reading.

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992...

He's the rockstar of the cogsci department at Berkeley but he's known as a massive ego and a poor professor.

I don't want to be harsh here, but it might be worth for you to consider that you were also a poor student.

Sure, it's a fair consideration. But before asking that question you should have just quickly googled some other student opinions.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=246554

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