I came across this passage in a book by the anthropologist/sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu just now (please forgive the translator for preserving the
rhythm and pace of the text which is highly convoluted):
'... whereas the ordinary practice of euphemization ... substitutes one word
for another, or visibly neutralizes the ordinary meaning of an excessively
marked word by an explicit caution (inverted commas, for instance) or a
distinctive definition, Heidegger proceeds in a manner that is infinetly
more complex: by using the ordinary word, but in a network of
morphologically interconnected words, he invites a philological and
polyphonic reading that is able to evoke and revoke the ordinary sense
simultaneiously, able to suggest it while ostensibly repressing it, along
with its pejorative connotations, into the order of vulgar ...
understanding'
Language and Symbolic Power (Polity Press, 1991) page 148.
If you can hack through the verdant verbeage, you will see a neat expression
of the power of ambiguity without resort to prurience or sniggering.
I could not have put it better myself (but I might perhaps have used fewer
words)!
Charles.
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