One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called “weasel words.” When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a “weasel word” after another there is nothing left of the other.
ATTRIBUTION:
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), U.S. Republican (later Progressive) politician, president. speech, May 31, 1916, St. Louis, Missouri. Works, vol. 24 (1926).
Referring to Woodrow Wilson’s proposal for “universal voluntary military training.”
