Former prime minister Manmohan Singh has written to President Ram Nath Koving asking him to caution the Prime Minister against using threatening language.&nbsp;

ANI reported that Manmohan had said Prime Minister Modi should not use "unwarranted, threatening and intimidating language" against leaders of the Congress party or any other party.&nbsp;

ANI added Manmohan as saying in his letter that such language does not behove the position of the prime minister.&nbsp;

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Former PM & senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh writes to President of India asking him to caution the PM from using unwarranted , threatening & intimidating language against the leaders of the Congress Party or any other party of person as it does not behove position of the PM <a href="https://t.co/4FHM5MPeB1">pic.twitter.com/4FHM5MPeB1</a>
— ANI (@ANI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI/status/995945745684430848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Such language does not behove the position of the prime minister, former prime minister Manmohan Singh wrote in his letter to President Kovind

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh has written to President Ram Nath Koving asking him to caution the Prime Minister against using threatening language. ANI reported that Manmohan had said Prime Minister Modi should not use "unwarranted, threatening and intimidating language" against leaders of the Congress party or any other party. ANI added Manmohan as saying in his letter that such language does not behove the position of the prime minister. Former PM & senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh writes to President of India asking him to caution the PM from using unwarranted , threatening & intimidating language against the leaders of the Congress Party or any other party of person as it does not behove position of the PM pic.twitter.com/4FHM5MPeB1 — ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2018 ×

Caution PM against using unwarranted, threatening language, Manmohan writes to President

A professor of the University of Hyderabad has discovered two new languages.

Professor Panchanan Mohanty, former dean of the School of Humanities discovered the languages- Walmiki and Malhar. These languages are spoken in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

As a part of the research activity of the Centre for Endangered Languages and Mother Tongue Studies, UoH, Prof Mohanty of the department of linguists, discovered two languages - Walmiki and Malhar. Linguists do not know that these two languages exist. Only a few people living in the forest and hilly areas speak these languages. Surprisingly, they have remained out of public focus.

According to a release from the university, "Prof Mohanty collected some data and did a preliminary analysis of this language. He published a paper in the proceedings of the XX annual conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, UK".

"The name of the language, Walmiki, "is interesting and indicative because the speech community claims descent from the great Indian saint-poet Valmiki," the release added.

The languages are categorised `endangered’ as the number of people speaking is small. For instance Malhar is spoken by just 75 including children from a particular community. These people live in a remote and isolated hamlet about 165 kms from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha.

The discovery has been made and announced by Panchanan Mohanty of the Centre for Endangered Languages and Mother Tongue Studies at the UoH. He has collected data, did preliminary analysis and published a paper in the proceedings of the XX Annual Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, UK.

Walmiki is spoken in the district of Koraput and in the bordering districts of Andhra Pradesh. The etymology of the name is also interesting. It indicates that the community speaking the language have descent from the Indian saint-poet Valmiki, who is credited to have written one version of the epic Ramayana.

Though less than 100 speak the language Malhar, they are very fluent as they live completely detached from the Odia speaking neighbours. They survive on daily labour and collections from the nearby forest, sayd Mohanty. Analyis indicated that the tongue belongs to the North Dravidian subgroup of the Dravidian family of languages.

Professor Panchanan Mohanty, former dean of the School of Humanities discovered the languages- Walmiki and Malhar. These languages are spoken in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha

A professor of the University of Hyderabad has discovered two new languages. Professor Panchanan Mohanty, former dean of the School of Humanities discovered the languages- Walmiki and Malhar. These languages are spoken in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. As a part of the research activity of the Centre for Endangered Languages and Mother Tongue Studies, UoH, Prof Mohanty of the department of linguists, discovered two languages - Walmiki and Malhar. Linguists do not know that these two languages exist. Only a few people living in the forest and hilly areas speak these languages. Surprisingly, they have remained out of public focus. According to a release from the university, "Prof Mohanty collected some data and did a preliminary analysis of this language. He published a paper in the proceedings of the XX annual conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, UK". "The name of the language, Walmiki, "is interesting and indicative because the speech community claims descent from the great Indian saint-poet Valmiki," the release added. The languages are categorised `endangered’ as the number of people speaking is small. For instance Malhar is spoken by just 75 including children from a particular community. These people live in a remote and isolated hamlet about 165 kms from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha. The discovery has been made and announced by Panchanan Mohanty of the Centre for Endangered Languages and Mother Tongue Studies at the UoH. He has collected data, did preliminary analysis and published a paper in the proceedings of the XX Annual Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, UK. Walmiki is spoken in the district of Koraput and in the bordering districts of Andhra Pradesh. The etymology of the name is also interesting. It indicates that the community speaking the language have descent from the Indian saint-poet Valmiki, who is credited to have written one version of the epic Ramayana. Though less than 100 speak the language Malhar, they are very fluent as they live completely detached from the Odia speaking neighbours. They survive on daily labour and collections from the nearby forest, sayd Mohanty. Analyis indicated that the tongue belongs to the North Dravidian subgroup of the Dravidian family of languages.

Hyderabad university professor discovers two new languages

Sir Muhammad Iqbal - Tere sheeshe mein ma&rsquo;i baaqi nahi hai, bataa kya tu mera saaqi nahi hai (Your wine-glass contains the life-giving wine no more. Tell me, are you not my sustainer?)&nbsp;

Ammi, apa, bitiya, bibi, ninni bibi, chanda-mama, babua, adaab.

Well, these are some of the first words that begin to echo when I enter the word &ldquo;mother tongue&rdquo; on the computer of my mind. A sweet, rosy scent wafts into my mind with some tenderness, some do&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;ts gently mixed with it. A sweet and melodious language indeed is my mother tongue &ndash; Urdu. Some of the words remain, hanging in there, but some are lost, or at least their meanings and resonances are lost to a fast-moving, polarised and unthinking, self-obsessed world. Those, that hang in there, do much to groom our personalities, perhaps even instill some poetry, along with style and elegance into us. But that does not go to say that you can&rsquo;t swear or abuse or crack vulgar jokes in Urdu. In fact, they lace the humour or the candidness of such exchanges with a sarcasm which could not otherwise be achieved in a short-cut type, unthoughtful or crude language.&nbsp;

Now, &ldquo;bitiya&rdquo; is a typical word for a girl, and can be used for both a little, as well as a grown-up girl, and must be familiar to the reader. But &ldquo;bibi&rdquo; is a word which is almost always confused with &ldquo;biwi&rdquo; now and I bite my nails anxiously when my father reciprocates my friends&rsquo; salaams or namaste with a &ldquo;khush raho bibi&rdquo; (meaning stay well and happy young lady), hoping that she understands that he is calling her &ldquo;bibi&rdquo; which means a decent or fair lady or young woman and so on. How can he not use the word &ldquo;bibi&rdquo; if he wants to retain the flavour of the speech he uses to attend young ladies? He can&rsquo;t possibly abandon its use just because it gets distorted or misunderstood.&nbsp;

I suppose that is the way to fight the battle against misreading or distortion of many of the words of Urdu language. You should just continue to use them, not with any vindictive agenda, but because you like to believe that correct usage will provide the healing touch to a beleaguered language.

Why do I call my mother tongue beleaguered? In a world of text messages and Instagram, any language may find itself beleaguered when it comes to short forms or acronyms, but the internet and the cell phone has added to the usage of words too. The world is yapping in Urdu too. There are words everywhere, playing hide and seek with language.&nbsp;

So what does Urdu suffer from? What are the challenges it faces today? &nbsp;&nbsp;

With the declaration of Hindi (which could be called a Sanskritised form of Urdu in the Nagri script) as the national language of India at the time of independence, the notion that Urdu could no longer provide jobs caught on very quickly and wrongly. As a result, there were no worthy takers of the language in the university departments. Same was the case with the Persian departments in Indian universities. Very soon, we began producing mediocre or even poor quality Urdu teachers who were themselves slightly embarrassed at having studied Urdu because the syllabi in the universities also suggested to some extent that Urdu was an outdated language whose days of glory were over. The moment of victory was already lost. These mediocre teachers produced even more mediocre Urdu intellectuals which in turn impoverished the Urdu scene.&nbsp;

So, while the Indian nation was never really averse to Urdu, the mentor, keepers, and the Urdu minds had started becoming sterile and polluted, almost as if, ashamed of their legacy of Urdu since they couldn&rsquo;t see beyond their noses.&nbsp;

Today, we have a huge dearth of good teachers and thinkers in Urdu. Indians, and prominently Hindus, want to learn the language, savour it, enjoy it, but they don&rsquo;t know where to go. This is a challenge that all, who love their mother tongue Urdu, have to rise to. By assigning Urdu language learning to the madrasas and not teaching it to our own children, we have handed Urdu to the poorest among the Muslims. More than 90% of those children go to madrasas who can afford no better education. This also leads to linking Urdu with religion, and alif for Allah, instead of maybe alif for amrud became a done thing.&nbsp;

My mother tongue tastes like the sweet spring of my mother&rsquo;s milk as she would lull me to sleep at her breast, melodiously singing &ldquo;ninni bi ninni bi aya karo, angan mein dhol bajaya karo&rdquo; (sweet-sounding lady of sleep, come to my courtyard, come and play the drums of sleep sic). You must have guessed by now that &ldquo;bi&rdquo; is a shortened and loving version of &ldquo;bibi&rdquo;.&nbsp;

This brings me to the question of corruption of language which has become a burning issue, particularly with Urdu. As an official kind of crude and unsympathetic, Hindi blares at us from the television sets and government files and other official sites. It seeps into Urdu, distorting better versions of the language existing there, ruining its elan, its mellifluousness.&nbsp;

I can give you umpteen examples &ndash; Sher jaag utha, instead of sher jaag gaya. Chai lijiye, instead of chai pijiye or chai nosh farmaiye, hum Benares se hain, instaed of hum Benares ke hain.

This has echoes of English, which probably got unwittingly translated into Hindi by the Hindi speakers and was then picked up by the Urdu speakers. Also, let us not import words from another language when we already have some in our own language. This runs the risk of bringing the original word into disuse someday in the future. A random list would go like this &ndash; towel, specs, table, kitchen, shoes, book, air, and the list goes on.&nbsp;

By the way, do you know the originals? &nbsp;

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

With the pervasion of Hindi and English words, Urdu seems to have lost its originality, purity and thus the importance.

Sir Muhammad Iqbal - Tere sheeshe mein ma’i baaqi nahi hai, bataa kya tu mera saaqi nahi hai (Your wine-glass contains the life-giving wine no more. Tell me, are you not my sustainer?) Ammi, apa, bitiya, bibi, ninni bibi, chanda-mama, babua, adaab. Well, these are some of the first words that begin to echo when I enter the word “mother tongue” on the computer of my mind. A sweet, rosy scent wafts into my mind with some tenderness, some do’s and don’ts gently mixed with it. A sweet and melodious language indeed is my mother tongue – Urdu. Some of the words remain, hanging in there, but some are lost, or at least their meanings and resonances are lost to a fast-moving, polarised and unthinking, self-obsessed world. Those, that hang in there, do much to groom our personalities, perhaps even instill some poetry, along with style and elegance into us. But that does not go to say that you can’t swear or abuse or crack vulgar jokes in Urdu. In fact, they lace the humour or the candidness of such exchanges with a sarcasm which could not otherwise be achieved in a short-cut type, unthoughtful or crude language. Now, “bitiya” is a typical word for a girl, and can be used for both a little, as well as a grown-up girl, and must be familiar to the reader. But “bibi” is a word which is almost always confused with “biwi” now and I bite my nails anxiously when my father reciprocates my friends’ salaams or namaste with a “khush raho bibi” (meaning stay well and happy young lady), hoping that she understands that he is calling her “bibi” which means a decent or fair lady or young woman and so on. How can he not use the word “bibi” if he wants to retain the flavour of the speech he uses to attend young ladies? He can’t possibly abandon its use just because it gets distorted or misunderstood. I suppose that is the way to fight the battle against misreading or distortion of many of the words of Urdu language. You should just continue to use them, not with any vindictive agenda, but because you like to believe that correct usage will provide the healing touch to a beleaguered language. Why do I call my mother tongue beleaguered? In a world of text messages and Instagram, any language may find itself beleaguered when it comes to short forms or acronyms, but the internet and the cell phone has added to the usage of words too. The world is yapping in Urdu too. There are words everywhere, playing hide and seek with language. So what does Urdu suffer from? What are the challenges it faces today? With the declaration of Hindi (which could be called a Sanskritised form of Urdu in the Nagri script) as the national language of India at the time of independence, the notion that Urdu could no longer provide jobs caught on very quickly and wrongly. As a result, there were no worthy takers of the language in the university departments. Same was the case with the Persian departments in Indian universities. Very soon, we began producing mediocre or even poor quality Urdu teachers who were themselves slightly embarrassed at having studied Urdu because the syllabi in the universities also suggested to some extent that Urdu was an outdated language whose days of glory were over. The moment of victory was already lost. These mediocre teachers produced even more mediocre Urdu intellectuals which in turn impoverished the Urdu scene. So, while the Indian nation was never really averse to Urdu, the mentor, keepers, and the Urdu minds had started becoming sterile and polluted, almost as if, ashamed of their legacy of Urdu since they couldn’t see beyond their noses. Today, we have a huge dearth of good teachers and thinkers in Urdu. Indians, and prominently Hindus, want to learn the language, savour it, enjoy it, but they don’t know where to go. This is a challenge that all, who love their mother tongue Urdu, have to rise to. By assigning Urdu language learning to the madrasas and not teaching it to our own children, we have handed Urdu to the poorest among the Muslims. More than 90% of those children go to madrasas who can afford no better education. This also leads to linking Urdu with religion, and alif for Allah, instead of maybe alif for amrud became a done thing. My mother tongue tastes like the sweet spring of my mother’s milk as she would lull me to sleep at her breast, melodiously singing “ninni bi ninni bi aya karo, angan mein dhol bajaya karo” (sweet-sounding lady of sleep, come to my courtyard, come and play the drums of sleep sic). You must have guessed by now that “bi” is a shortened and loving version of “bibi”. This brings me to the question of corruption of language which has become a burning issue, particularly with Urdu. As an official kind of crude and unsympathetic, Hindi blares at us from the television sets and government files and other official sites. It seeps into Urdu, distorting better versions of the language existing there, ruining its elan, its mellifluousness. I can give you umpteen examples – Sher jaag utha, instead of sher jaag gaya. Chai lijiye, instead of chai pijiye or chai nosh farmaiye, hum Benares se hain, instaed of hum Benares ke hain. This has echoes of English, which probably got unwittingly translated into Hindi by the Hindi speakers and was then picked up by the Urdu speakers. Also, let us not import words from another language when we already have some in our own language. This runs the risk of bringing the original word into disuse someday in the future. A random list would go like this – towel, specs, table, kitchen, shoes, book, air, and the list goes on. By the way, do you know the originals? (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Opinion: Is Urdu language dying because of Hindi infiltration?

On Nov. 29, President Trump retweeted a series of videos that purported to depict violence committed by Muslims. They had originated from the account of a far-right British ultranationalist who had been convicted for harassing a Muslim. The backlash was swift, with British Prime Minister Theresa May saying &ldquo;the President is wrong to have done this.&rdquo;

But Trump&rsquo;s retweeting of controversial (sometimes outright false) content is part of a pattern.

For example, during the 2016 campaign, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump about his retweet of a follower who insisted that both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were ineligible for the presidency.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb">
&quot;<a href="https://twitter.com/ResisTyr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ResisTyr</a>: Mr.Trump...BOTH Cruz AND Rubio are ineligible to be POTUS! It&#39;s a SLAM DUNK CASE!! Check it! <a href="https://t.co/NjqWP0pP6X">https://t.co/NjqWP0pP6X</a>&quot;
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/701045567783219201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">20 February 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

Trump dismissed Stephanopoulos&rsquo; question with &ldquo;it was a retweet&rdquo; &ndash; as if to say that retweeting someone else&rsquo;s claim meant that he wasn&rsquo;t responsible for the content.

When pressed, Trump continued:

<blockquote>
&ldquo;I mean, let people make their own determination. I&rsquo;ve never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it. As somebody said, he&rsquo;s not [eligible]&hellip;and I retweet things and we start dialogue and it&rsquo;s very interesting.&rdquo;
</blockquote>

It&rsquo;s a response that can be reduced to I&rsquo;m not saying it, I&rsquo;m just saying it.

As a scholar of American political rhetoric, I&rsquo;ve previously written about the ways that Donald Trump&rsquo;s rhetorical style mirrors that of polarising figures like George Wallace and Joseph McCarthy.

But it&rsquo;s becoming increasingly clear that what sets Trump apart is his reliance upon paralipsis, a device that enables him to publicly say things that he can later disavow &ndash; without ever having to take responsibility for his words.

Just saying&hellip;

The art of rhetoric &ndash; or persuasive communication &ndash; can include any number of forms: speeches, essays, tweets, images, films and more.

Paralipsis (para, &ldquo;side&rdquo; and leipein, &ldquo;to leave&rdquo;) is a Greek term that translates to &ldquo;leave to the side.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s thought to be an ironic way for a speaker to say two things at once.

For example, say you wanted to imply that your coworker takes too many coffee breaks without actually accusing him wasting time at work. You might say something like, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not saying that he drinks more coffee than anyone else in the office, but every time I go to the break room, he&rsquo;s in there.&rdquo; You might also shrug and make a &ldquo;something seems kind of off&rdquo; facial expression.

Paralipsis is a powerful rhetorical device because it can also allow someone to make a false accusation &ndash; or spread a false rumour &ndash; while skirting consequences.

And Trump has become a master at wielding this tool.

For example, after he was widely condemned for retweeting a graphic of homicide data delineated by race, FactCheck.org found that &ldquo;almost every figure in the graphic is wrong.&rdquo; His response on the Bill O&rsquo;Reilly Show was: 
&nbsp;

<blockquote>
Bill, I didn&rsquo;t tweet, I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert, and it was also a radio show&hellip;am I gonna check every statistic? &hellip;All it was is a retweet. And it wasn&rsquo;t from me. It came out of a radio show, and other places&hellip;This was a retweet. And it comes from sources that are very credible, what can I tell you?
</blockquote>

In other words: I&rsquo;m not saying, I&rsquo;m just saying.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly used paralipsis to deflect criticism that he&rsquo;s courting white supremacists.

In January 2016, Trump retweeted a photoshopped image of Jeb Bush from a user with the handle WhiteGenocideTM. In response to the backlash he received for retweeting a white supremacist, Trump simply shrugged: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about retweeting. You retweet somebody and they turn out to be white supremacists. I know nothing about these groups that are supporting me.&rdquo;

Likewise, he blamed a faulty earpiece for his unwillingness to disavow David Duke and the KKK in a CNN interview:

<blockquote>
I don&rsquo;t know anything about what you&rsquo;re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don&rsquo;t know. I don&rsquo;t know &ndash; did he endorse me, or what&rsquo;s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.
</blockquote>

&nbsp;

<hr />
I&rsquo;m not saying, I&rsquo;m just saying.

And when Gawker tricked Trump into retweeting a quote from Benito Mussolini during the campaign, his response was &ldquo;What difference does it make whether it&rsquo;s Mussolini or somebody else? It&rsquo;s certainly a very interesting quote.&rdquo;

Accountability and responsibility

Certainly, it&rsquo;s a good thing to &ldquo;start dialogue.&rdquo; Trump knows that &ldquo;interesting&rdquo; content attracts retweets, followers, audiences and media attention.

However, there&rsquo;s danger in circulating accusations and rumours, even if the purpose is to &ldquo;start dialogue.&rdquo; Research shows that once an accusation or a rumour begins to circulate, it&rsquo;s very difficult to retract. Often, a retraction or clarification doesn&rsquo;t receive as much attention as the initial accusation. Meanwhile, the mere act of retracting misinformation can reaffirm the deceptive assertions as facts, even after the clarification.

So what does it mean when a political figure gains a devoted following and rises to prominence &ndash; yet consistently avoids taking responsibility for the content of his public messages?

Political theorists, rhetoricians and historians have grappled with this exact problem since the rise of the &ldquo;demagogue&rdquo; in Athens in 429 B.C., when Pericles&rsquo; death created a vacuum for &ldquo;unofficial&rdquo; leaders of the people to rise to power.

The danger, according to political scientist Ernest Barker, was that &ldquo;such a leader &ndash; having no official executive position &ndash; could exercise initiative and determine policy without incurring political responsibility, since it was not his duty to execute the policy which he had induced the assembly to accept.&rdquo;

In the Greek context, Barker described the danger of demagogues who weren&rsquo;t tasked with implementing the policies for which they advocated. In our current political context, Trump can argue that he can&rsquo;t be held accountable because he wasn&rsquo;t the one who originally posted the tweet. He can shrug and claim that he&rsquo;s simply giving a voice to an idea.

In both cases, the defining feature of demagogues is their refusal to accept responsibility for their actions.

Yet Donald Trump (the television star) routinely fired people on his show &ldquo;The Apprentice&rdquo; for failing to take responsibility for their team&rsquo;s failures. And he&rsquo;s often given lectures on &ldquo;responsibility&rdquo; to his Twitter followers, like on February 14, 2013 when he invited his followers to &ldquo;take responsibility for yourself &ndash; it&rsquo;s a very empowering attitude.&rdquo;

To use the President&rsquo;s brand of paralipsis: I&rsquo;m not saying that Trump&rsquo;s a hypocrite and a demagogue. I&rsquo;m just saying that he doesn&rsquo;t exactly follow his own advice.

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" rel="nofollow" target="blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-an-insidious-strategy-behind-donald-trumps-retweets-55615" rel="nofollow" target="blank">original article</a>.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Image Credit:&nbsp;Shutterstock

&nbsp;

An expert in American political rhetoric explains why Trump's controversial retweets are actually an extremely effective rhetorical device

On Nov. 29, President Trump retweeted a series of videos that purported to depict violence committed by Muslims. They had originated from the account of a far-right British ultranationalist who had been convicted for harassing a Muslim. The backlash was swift, with British Prime Minister Theresa May saying “the President is wrong to have done this.” But Trump’s retweeting of controversial (sometimes outright false) content is part of a pattern. For example, during the 2016 campaign, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump about his retweet of a follower who insisted that both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were ineligible for the presidency. "@ResisTyr: Mr.Trump...BOTH Cruz AND Rubio are ineligible to be POTUS! It's a SLAM DUNK CASE!! Check it! https://t.co/NjqWP0pP6X" — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 20 February 2016 × Trump dismissed Stephanopoulos’ question with “it was a retweet” – as if to say that retweeting someone else’s claim meant that he wasn’t responsible for the content. When pressed, Trump continued: “I mean, let people make their own determination. I’ve never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it. As somebody said, he’s not [eligible]…and I retweet things and we start dialogue and it’s very interesting.” It’s a response that can be reduced to I’m not saying it, I’m just saying it. As a scholar of American political rhetoric, I’ve previously written about the ways that Donald Trump’s rhetorical style mirrors that of polarising figures like George Wallace and Joseph McCarthy. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that what sets Trump apart is his reliance upon paralipsis, a device that enables him to publicly say things that he can later disavow – without ever having to take responsibility for his words. Just saying… The art of rhetoric – or persuasive communication – can include any number of forms: speeches, essays, tweets, images, films and more. Paralipsis (para, “side” and leipein, “to leave”) is a Greek term that translates to “leave to the side.” It’s thought to be an ironic way for a speaker to say two things at once. For example, say you wanted to imply that your coworker takes too many coffee breaks without actually accusing him wasting time at work. You might say something like, “I’m not saying that he drinks more coffee than anyone else in the office, but every time I go to the break room, he’s in there.” You might also shrug and make a “something seems kind of off” facial expression. Paralipsis is a powerful rhetorical device because it can also allow someone to make a false accusation – or spread a false rumour – while skirting consequences. And Trump has become a master at wielding this tool. For example, after he was widely condemned for retweeting a graphic of homicide data delineated by race, FactCheck.org found that “almost every figure in the graphic is wrong.” His response on the Bill O’Reilly Show was: Bill, I didn’t tweet, I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert, and it was also a radio show…am I gonna check every statistic? …All it was is a retweet. And it wasn’t from me. It came out of a radio show, and other places…This was a retweet. And it comes from sources that are very credible, what can I tell you? In other words: I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly used paralipsis to deflect criticism that he’s courting white supremacists. In January 2016, Trump retweeted a photoshopped image of Jeb Bush from a user with the handle WhiteGenocideTM. In response to the backlash he received for retweeting a white supremacist, Trump simply shrugged: “I don’t know about retweeting. You retweet somebody and they turn out to be white supremacists. I know nothing about these groups that are supporting me.” Likewise, he blamed a faulty earpiece for his unwillingness to disavow David Duke and the KKK in a CNN interview: I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don’t know. I don’t know – did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. And when Gawker tricked Trump into retweeting a quote from Benito Mussolini during the campaign, his response was “What difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else? It’s certainly a very interesting quote.” Accountability and responsibility Certainly, it’s a good thing to “start dialogue.” Trump knows that “interesting” content attracts retweets, followers, audiences and media attention. However, there’s danger in circulating accusations and rumours, even if the purpose is to “start dialogue.” Research shows that once an accusation or a rumour begins to circulate, it’s very difficult to retract. Often, a retraction or clarification doesn’t receive as much attention as the initial accusation. Meanwhile, the mere act of retracting misinformation can reaffirm the deceptive assertions as facts, even after the clarification. So what does it mean when a political figure gains a devoted following and rises to prominence – yet consistently avoids taking responsibility for the content of his public messages? Political theorists, rhetoricians and historians have grappled with this exact problem since the rise of the “demagogue” in Athens in 429 B.C., when Pericles’ death created a vacuum for “unofficial” leaders of the people to rise to power. The danger, according to political scientist Ernest Barker, was that “such a leader – having no official executive position – could exercise initiative and determine policy without incurring political responsibility, since it was not his duty to execute the policy which he had induced the assembly to accept.” In the Greek context, Barker described the danger of demagogues who weren’t tasked with implementing the policies for which they advocated. In our current political context, Trump can argue that he can’t be held accountable because he wasn’t the one who originally posted the tweet. He can shrug and claim that he’s simply giving a voice to an idea. In both cases, the defining feature of demagogues is their refusal to accept responsibility for their actions. Yet Donald Trump (the television star) routinely fired people on his show “The Apprentice” for failing to take responsibility for their team’s failures. And he’s often given lectures on “responsibility” to his Twitter followers, like on February 14, 2013 when he invited his followers to “take responsibility for yourself – it’s a very empowering attitude.” To use the President’s brand of paralipsis: I’m not saying that Trump’s a hypocrite and a demagogue. I’m just saying that he doesn’t exactly follow his own advice. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity). Image Credit: Shutterstock

Opinion: Why Trump's retweets are so harmful

Baahubali 2 has become the <a href="http://www.wionews.com/life-fun/baahubali-2-creates-history-becomes-first-indian-film-to-make-rs-1000-cr-15304">highest-grossing Indian movie</a> of all time earning around Rs 1,000 crore or $154 million. But how does the earnings from&nbsp;Baahubali 2 compare to the top grossing films from other non-English&nbsp;language movies?

The highest-grossing non-English&nbsp;language movie of all time worldwide, according to <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/">BoxOfficeMojo.com</a>,&nbsp;is the Chinese movie The Mermaid released last year, which has earned around $554 million (as on May 11, 2017).

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In fact, six of the top 10 highest-grossing foreign language movies of all time are in Mandarin, with two in Japanese and French respectively.

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The top 10 list:

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And if you&#39;re interested in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time, regardless of language, here&#39;s the list.

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Baahubali 2 will have to make $90 million more to enter the top 10

Baahubali 2 has become the highest-grossing Indian movie of all time earning around Rs 1,000 crore or $154 million. But how does the earnings from Baahubali 2 compare to the top grossing films from other non-English language movies? The highest-grossing non-English language movie of all time worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, is the Chinese movie The Mermaid released last year, which has earned around $554 million (as on May 11, 2017). In fact, six of the top 10 highest-grossing foreign language movies of all time are in Mandarin, with two in Japanese and French respectively. The top 10 list: And if you're interested in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time, regardless of language, here's the list.

Infographic: Which are the biggest foreign-language movies?

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