Nobody likes a whistleblower, wrayer, snitch, narker, denunciator, quadruplator, or emphanist

[Baron, Dennis E]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:


Nobody likes a whistleblower, wrayer, snitch, narker, denunciator, quadruplator, or emphanist

A law firm<http://www.whistleblower-insider.com/about-us/> that specializes in defending whistleblowers has started a petition on change.org<http://www.change.org/petitions/merriam-webster-change-your-synonyms-for-whistleblower> to persuade Merriam-Webster and thesaurus.com<http://thesaurus.com> to ditch their derogatory synonyms for whistleblower in favor of positive terms:

[W]histleblowers are increasingly stepping forward on behalf of the public good. Yet that old school-yard mentality of “nobody likes a snitch” persists. It's high time for a change.

The lawyers want the definers of English to replace negative synonyms like betrayer, fink, and snitch with uplifting ones like watchdog, truthteller, and fraud-buster. All these negatives “mean fewer people coming forward to protect us when they see something wrong.” And that, in turn, means fewer whistleblowers fired, disciplined, or fleeing to Russia, which equals fewer clients for the firm.

read the whole post on the Web of Language: http://bit.ly/weblan

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