Signs and signals

There are two voguish current terms which make American political discourse extremely irritating. They occur routinely in every press conference, every current-affairs broadcast, every congressional debate, and almost every editorial comment. The terms are "perception" and "signal." The first is used as either a displacement or an evasion. The speaker need not say that he thinks the consequence of policy X will be harmful. That would be definite nad thus too risky. It is usual, then, for him to intone that policy X "will be perceived" as harmful. This has two political advantages: it takes longer to say and thus sounds more important; and it is ambiguous, having all the moral weight of the statement "It's not me, it's the neighbors."

-- Christopher Hitchens, "Perceptions and Signals" (Feb. 18, 1984).