View source for Magic Words

Like "abracadabra" and "hocus-pocus", magic words have little or no intrinsic meaning.  They are used to send social signals or trigger emotional responses.

EXAMPLES:

"Racist": used to signal contempt.  Any moral category which includes both James Watson and Reinhardt Heydrich is too vague and general to be worth arguing about.

"Fascist": this was already played out in Orwell's day.  Nobody really knows what it means, but I've attempted a definition.