Talk:Emotive conjugation

Article examples do not make sense
I read the first paragraph from the article, and I thought I understood it, but when I read the example, things started to not make any sense that I thought that I have completely no idea what this article is even talking about.

First it says that people use irregular verbs because illustrating their tendency to describe their behavior in a way more charitable than the others' behavior. But then the example does not have any irregular verbs!


 * I am firm, You are obstinate, He is a pig-headed fool.
 * I am righteously indignant, you are annoyed, he is making a fuss over nothing.
 * I have reconsidered the matter, you have changed your mind, he has gone back on his word.

Can someone please answer this? Thank you. --Ridhaintj (talk) 00:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry that you have waited so long for an answer. Emotive conjugation mimics the way that a present tense irregular verb has non-standard forms for the first, second and/or third person (e.g. I am, you are, he is). However, instead of just an irregular verb, emotive conjugation employs elements that differ in their cognitive perspective, as in your example (I am firm, You are obstinate, He is a pig-headed fool). This is an indirect (non-confrontational and potentially amusing) technique for saying that an argument is based on loaded language. - Pointillist (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

There's also the old saying, "Horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow"... --- AnonMoos (talk) 15:36, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Article lacks structure leading to lack of clarity
The article does not directly define the topic of emotive conjugation, instead it relies only on appealing to the analogy of irregular verbs for definition. This appeal to analogy could be reserved until after a more clear definition is stated to provide greater context to the concept. This lack of a clear definition is exacerbated by the content of the article being contained entirely in the lead section giving no distinct boundary between supporting information or context, and the summary of the topic itself. The article may be more readable if it separated the definition of and the motivation for emotive conjugation from the examples given by Russell and on Television. The article also lacks a great deal of historical context, it does not specify if this concept was first formally recognized by Russell or if he simply remarked on it in his interviews, nor does it provide any information about further development of the concept in Linguistics. It would be helpful to know if the concept of emotive conjugation was formally developed or considered since Russell’s interviews, or if it was mostly left alone.

Jaxsun (talk) 03:55, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Changes for Clarity and Simplicity
I think this article could benefit from properly defining the subject matter in plain language. While it provides an example of Russell Connotation, it doesn't do a great job explaining it to an entry level reader. I want to add information on how this concept was discovered by Bertrand Russel, how it was indirectly expanded upon by Frank Luntz, and provide real-world examples that make the concept easier to grasp. Flannypack1 (talk) 03:47, 13 February 2023 (UTC)