Word to the Wise: Equivocation

"Equivocation" (ih-kwiv-uh-KAY-shun) - from the Latin for "of identical sound" - is intentionally vague or ambiguous language.

Example (as used by Ben Macintyre in a New York Times review of Peace by Richard Bausch): "The best [writing about war], like this, is in shades of gray, evoking the personal equivocations, the doubts, the discomfort, and the sheer, crushing boredom and fatigue that constitute the real nature of war."

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