wooden language
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English
Etymology
Calque of French langue de bois.
Noun
- (derogatory) Speech or writing that is overly abstract, vague, metaphorical or pretentious in order to avoid addressing salient issues.
2022 May 20, Patrick McGuinness, “Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov review – the dangers of dwelling in the past”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- Life behind the iron curtain was an education in a certain kind of humour: dark, unsentimental and absurd. It understood that jokes had become shortcuts to the truth – apart from the bonus of laughter, they turned the wooden language of the regime against itself in ways that sincerity could not.