[Peace-discuss] Today's vocabulary lesson, 4/29/22

[Szoke, Ron]

>  DEMAGOG 
dem·a·gogue also dem·a·gog  (dĕm′ə-gôg′, -gŏg′)   n.
1. A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.
2. A leader of the common people in ancient times.   
v. tr.
Usage Problem:  To speak about (an issue, for example) in the manner of a demagogue.   v. intr.
[Greek dēmagōgos, popular leader : dēmos, people; see dā- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots + agōgos, leading (from agein, to lead; see ag- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots).]

 -- Usage Note: Even though demagogue has been used as a verb meaning "to speak about something with the tactics of a demagogue" since the 1600s, the verb has kept a low profile in the language. The Usage Panel does not view the verb with much favor in either its transitive or intransitive use. In our 2016 survey, between 85 and 89 percent of the Usage Panel rejected it in a range of intransitive and transitive examples. These results are only slightly more favorable than when this issue was last balloted, nearly two decades earlier. Perhaps this continued resistance should not be surprising, since the use of familiar nouns as verbs is often the subject of complaints.
Noun	1.  demagog - a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular passions and prejudices. 
   demagogue, rabble-rouser

CHARLATAN
A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud.
[French, from Italian ciarlatano, probably alteration (influenced by ciarlare, to prattle) of cerretano, inhabitant of Cerreto, a city of Italy once famous for its quacks.]
someone who professes knowledge or expertise, esp in medicine, that he or she does not have; quack.
a person who pretends to special knowledge or skill that he or she does not possess; quack; fraud.
[1595–1605; < Middle French < Italian ciarlatano, b. ciarlatore chatterer and cerretano hawker, quack, literally, native of Cerreto a village in Umbria]

>  RABBLE  rab·ble 1   n.
1. A tumultuous crowd; a mob.
2. The lowest or unrefined class of people. Often used with the.
3. A group of persons regarded with contempt: "After subsisting on the invisible margins of the art scene ... he was 'discovered' in the mid-80's, along with a crowd of like-minded rabble from the East Village" (Richard B. Woodward).
1. a disorderly crowd; mob
2. the rabble: derogatory the common people
— a pack, string, or swarm of animals or insects; a crowd or array of disorderly people, 1513; the low or disorderly part of the populace; a disorderly collection; a confused medley.
Examples: rabble of appetites, passions and opinions, 1768; of bees; of books, 1803; of butterflies; of ceremonies, 1562; of licentious deities, 1741; of discourse, 1656; of dishes; of flies, 1847; of friars, 1560; of gnats; of insects; of monks, 1560; of murderers, 1792; of opinions, 1768; of passions, 1861; of people, 1635; of mean and light persons, 1568; of pictures, 1581; of scholastic precepts, 1589; of priests, 1529; of readers, 1691; of reasons, 1641; of remedies, 1633; of schoolmen, 1671; of strangers, 1840; of uncommanded traditions, 1545; of womanhood, 1847; of words, 1388.

>  POPULISM 
1. a. A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
b. The movement organized around this philosophy.
2. Populism The philosophy of the Populist Party.

1. the political philosophy of the Populist or People's Party.
2. (l.c.) an egalitarian political philosophy or movement that promotes the interests of the common people.
3. (l.c.) representation or celebration of the views, interests, etc., of the common people.

1. the principles and doctrines of any political party asserting that it represents the rank and file of the people.
2. (cap.) the principles and doctrines of a late 19th-century American party, especially its support of agrarian interests and a silver coinage. — populist, n., ad
>  the political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite. 

[ Sometimes regarded as a degenerate & unstable form of democracy.  The purest & most extreme version would seem to be the vigilante mob or crowd of looters or a lynch mob or certain revenge-seeking revanchist, nationalist or ethnic groups such as the Crusaders of past centuries or the violent settler groups in Israel today.  They usually regard themselves as justified by some Higher Law or the General Will or the Vox Populi doctrine or the intensity of their emotions of resentment concerning the horrible past injustices they (or their group) are said to have suffered.  ~ RSz. 042922 ]  

--- based on the online Free Dictionary by Farlex