triangulation
n.— «Labour are expert at using the presentational device called “triangulation.” For those unfamiliar with the argot of the Westminster village, this involves pinching key planks of a rival party’s platform to deny them any electoral advantage from it. Tony Blair’s slogan “tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime” was a classic piece of triangulation. You take Labour’s traditional “society is to blame” line but qualify it by adding a Tory commitment to being tough on criminals. Hey presto: you have both constituencies in your pocket. Well, if they buy it—and a lot of voters did.» —“Nothing left but a spin to the right” by Iain Macwhirter Sunday Herald (Glasgow, Scotland) Nov. 28, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...