False friends in political dogwhistles

ABSTRACT

Philosophers have studied various ways in which things can be said implicitly, and how this can be exploited in both derogatory and political speech. The present paper follows this tradition by focussing on a linguistic phenomenon which has so far received little attention from philosophers, i.e. (linguistic) false friends. In linguistics, false friends are understood as bilingual homographs or homophones which differ (significantly) in some kind of conventional linguistic meaning. We will argue that such false friends can be used for (political) dogwhistling. Hence, by providing a better understanding of the linguistic phenomenon of false friends, the present paper aims to provide a better understanding of dogwhistling, possibly opening up new ways of preventing or at least containing the negative consequences of these speech acts.

KEYWORDS:

• false friends
• dogwhistles
• semantic change
• speaker meaning

1. Introduction

Philosophers have studied various ways in which things can be said implicitly, and how this can be exploited in both derogatory and political speech. For example, many theories of hate speech and slurs refer to implicit content, such as presuppositions, conventional implicatures, and the like, in order to explain the derogatory force of these speech acts. Similarly, philosophers have tried to better understand linguistic phenomena pertaining to political speech, such as dogwhistling, resorting to pragmatic implications, e.g. conversational implicatures (see, e.g. Saul 2018). The present paper follows this tradition by focussing on a linguistic phenomenon which has so far received little attention from philosophers, i.e. (linguistic) false friends.

In linguistics, false friends are understood as bilingual homographs or homophones, i.e. words in two languages that look or sound similar, which differ (significantly) in some kind of conventional linguistic meaning, including truth-conditional content, expressive content, conventional implicatures, semantic presuppositions, and the like.¹ For example, the Spanish word ‘embarazada’ is phonetically similar to the English word ‘embarrassed’ but actually means pregnant. Similarly, the German word ‘Gift’ both sounds and looks like the English word ‘gift’, while sharing its meaning with ‘poison’. This pair of false friends is joined by the Norwegian word ‘gift’, meaning married.

It is a well-known fact that false friends can lead to semantic change. For example, because of the strong influence of English on the German language, German native speakers, in particular of the younger generations, increasingly started to (mis)use the German word ‘Konzept’, whose original meaning is draft or plan, with the meaning notion of its English false friend ‘concept’. It seems that by now this has even led to the German word acquiring the additional meaning notion.² In this paper, we will argue that the fact that expressions can be (mis)used by utilising the meaning of one of their false friends can be exploited for (political) dogwhistling. Accordingly, a better understanding of the linguistic mechanism behind semantic change due to false friends promises a better understanding of these (morally relevant) linguistic manoeuvres, possibly opening up new ways of preventing or at least containing their negative consequences. Therefore, the overall aim of this paper is to provide an explanation of semantic change due to false friends, using Grice's (1989) distinction between speaker meaning and linguistic or semantic meaning, and to apply this explanation to the use of dogwhistles in political speech. The upshot will be that more attention should be given to pragmatic circumstances when assessing which speech acts are performed with an utterance, in order to identify morally problematic speech, such as uses of (political) dogwhistles.

The paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we will discuss the linguistic phenomenon of false friends in more detail. Following this, in Section 3, we will argue that false friends can be used for (political) dogwhistling. Finally, in Section 4, we will develop an explanation of semantic change due to false friends and apply this explanation to the use of false friends in political dogwhistling.

2. Linguistic false friends

False friends can arise in various ways. In many cases the expressions are cognates, sharing an etymological origin. For example, the English word ‘eventually’ (in the end, finally) shares its Latin origin, i.e. ‘evenire’ (to happen, to turn out), with the German ‘eventuell’ and the Spanish ‘eventualmente’, both meaning perhaps or possibly. In addition, false friends can arise from loanwords, i.e. words that are at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another (the recipient language), whose meaning is then restricted in the recipient language. For instance, the German word ‘Angst’ means fear as well as anxiety in a general sense, whereas in English its meaning is restricted to a particular type of fear, i.e. a neurotic feeling of anxiety and depression. Finally, false friends can arise purely by chance, having no shared etymology, such as the German pronoun ‘mir’ (me, dative case) and the Ukrainian ‘мир’ (peace).

What is said to distinguish false friends from homonyms is the fact that the latter are homographs or homophones (or both) from one and the same language which differ (significantly) in meaning, such as the pair ‘left’ (past tense of ‘leave’) and ‘left’ (opposite of right). Accordingly, the difference between homonyms and false friends depends (at least in part) on what we consider to be a language. For example, in Swedish, the word ‘rolig’ means fun, while in the closely related languages Danish and Norwegian it means calm.³ Similarly, many expressions have completely different meanings in British and American English: ‘rubber’ (eraser vs condom), ‘pants’ (underpants vs trousers), ‘biscuit’ (hard cookie vs a soft scone), ‘fag’ (cigarette vs a pejorative term for a gay man), ‘fanny’ (vulgar slang for vagina vs backside) etc. Hence, it seems that depending on whether we would classify British English and American English (and Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, respectively) as one language these expressions would either be classified as homonyms or as false friends.

Standardly, British English and American English are considered different dialects or varieties of a single language. However, there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing two different languages from two dialects (i.e. varieties) of the same language. For example, there has been a discussion about whether or not the Limón Creole English, spoken at the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica by descendants of Jamaican people, should either be considered a variety of English or a language different from English. Accordingly, there is no clear-cut distinction between homonyms and false friends either. Moreover, even homographs and homophones of different dialects are sometimes classified as false friends. A case in point are the examples from English and Scandinavian dialects mentioned above. These are sometimes classified both as false friends and as homonyms, suggesting that there is no clear distinction between the two linguistic phenomena, independent of whether there could, in principle, be a clear distinction between different dialects and different languages.

We believe that it makes perfect sense to classify homonyms of different dialects as false friends. Not only do they share the distinguishing properties of false friends, i.e. being homographs or homophones with different meanings, their use also appears to have similar effects on language users and, as a result, on the respective languages themselves. For example, as mentioned above, German native speakers, in particular of the younger generations, increasingly started to (mis)use the German word ‘Konzept’ with the meaning of its English false friend ‘concept’, which by now even seems to have led to the German word acquiring the additional meaning notion. Another example is the French word ‘contrôler’ (to verify). This term started taking on a new meaning because of its English false friend ‘to control’ in terms like ‘contrôle des naissances’ (birth control). The same phenomenon can be identified between varieties of one and the same language. For example, the influence of American movies led to speakers of British English using the term ‘tube’ beyond its general meaning (long, hollow object) with the meaning telly of its American false friend and the term ‘shade’ with the meaning sunglasses in addition to its general meaning (darkness caused by objects blocking the sunlight) (Mammadzada 2023).

Similar phenomena arise in connection with homographs and homophones of different sociolects which differ in some kind of conventional linguistic meaning. This is why, in what follows, we will classify such expression pairs as false friends. Youth language provides many examples, as it often borrows expressions from the respective standard language while changing its meaning. Take, for instance, the German word ‘geil’. Its original meaning in Standard German was sexually aroused. In German youth language in the 1970s and 1980s this meaning was first extended to sexually attractive, and the term was subsequently used to express positive enthusiastic evaluations in general. We believe that this made the use of ‘geil’ in German youth language a false friend of the term ‘geil’ in Standard German, eventually leading to a change in meaning of the term ‘geil’ in Standard German, which today is used to express positive enthusiastic evaluations, too.⁴

In order to better understand how false friends can lead to such semantic changes, we first have to answer the question how it is even possible for speakers of a language L to (mis)use an expression e of L with the meaning of a false friend from a different language, dialect or sociolect $L^{\prime }$. For instance, how is it possible for German native speakers to use the German word ‘Konzept’ with the meaning notion of its English false friend ‘concept’ before the German word ‘Konzept’ acquired this additional meaning? This should then lead to an explanation of semantic changes due to false friends, as in the case of ‘Konzept’. Such an explanation would be of great theoretical importance. Moreover, next, we will argue that the linguistic phenomenon of false friends is also of practical-ethical relevance, as false friends can be used for political dogwhistling.

3. False friends in political dogwhistles

Throughout his campaign for the US presidency in 2016, Donald Trump used the seemingly neutral term ‘political correctness’ in order to attract White power supporters without addressing them directly. As Hinton (2020) points out, ‘for White power actors, political correctness is explicitly about “race struggle” ’ and is seen ‘as part of a plot to diminish and even destroy the White race’. Hence, White power supporters understood Trump's opposition to political correctness as him sharing their racist concerns. At the same time, Trump could have denied any intention to attract White power supporters by pointing out that he was just expressing his opposition to political correctness in the sense of language, policies or measures that are intended to avoid offence or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.

Linguistic manoeuvres of this kind are known as dogwhistles, since their primary message is only accessible to a subset of the general audience. As Mendelberg (2001) notes, this allows the dogwhistler (and their audience) to violate certain social norms while plausibly denying doing so to the general public. For example, the fact that Trump could deny any intention to express racist attitudes with his uses of the term ‘political correctness’ can at least in part be explained by the fact that the vast majority of the general audience did not understand Trump's opposition to political correctness as him sharing the racist concerns of White power supporters. Using Witten's (n.d.) definition of dogwhistles, Saul (2018) would classify Trump's utterances as overt intentional dogwhistles:⁵

A[n overt intentional] dogwhistle is a speech act designed, with intent, to allow two plausible interpretations, with one interpretation being a private, coded message targeted for a subset of the general audience, and concealed in such a way that this general audience is unaware of the existence of the second, coded interpretation. (Saul 2018, 362)

Given his social and political background, it is almost certain that Trump intentionally dogwhistled to White power supporters. What makes his utterances instances of overt dogwhistles is the fact that the private, coded message has been understood by its target group as such. As Hinton (2020) notes, ‘White power extremists have always heard these [Trump's] racist dogwhistles loud and clear’.

According to Saul's (2018) classification of dogwhistles, news reports repeating Trump's opposition to political correctness can also be classified as dogwhistles, although as unintentional dogwhistles. Since these utterances would still be understood by White power supporters as Trump sharing their racist concerns, Saul would classify them as unintentional overt dogwhistles.

We contend that the use of false friends is widespread in political dogwhistles, and that Trump's dogwhistle ‘political correctness’ constitutes one such example. As Hinton (2020) points out, for most liberal speakers ‘political correctness’ functions as a neutral term for a boundary marker of acceptable speak. Accordingly, ‘political correctness remains a much needed corrective to structural racism and the sorts of identity-based injustices that have returned to public focus during the Trump administration’ (Hinton 2020). However, by those on the political right the term is used in a pejorative manner, ‘to warn against Orwellian groupthink and threats to freedom of thought and speech’ (Hinton 2020). As we have seen above, this is particularly true of White power supporters, for whom political correctness is explicitly about race struggle.⁶ This suggests that there are two uses of the term ‘political correctness’, which is why the fact that it can be used to dogwhistle to the political right, and in particular to White power supporters, should be explained by the fact that their term ‘political correctness’ has become a false friend of the term used by the general public.⁷

Another example of a political dogwhistle using false friends is George W. Bush's use of ‘wonder-working power’ in order to dogwhistle to fundamentalist Christians during his campaign for the US presidency in 2004. In his 2003 State of the Union speech Bush said (Noah 2004):

(1)	Yet there is power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.

As Saul (2018, 362) notes, ‘to a non-fundamentalist this is an ordinary piece of fluffy political boilerplate, which passes without notice’. However, in the sociolect of fundamentalists the term ‘wonder-working power’ refers to the power of Christ. Hence, for them, (1) has to be read as (2).⁸

(2)	Yet there is power, the power of Christ, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.

This shows that the term ‘wonder-working power’, as used by fundamentalists, is a false friend of the more common use of the term, according to which it simply means something extraordinary powerful (but still quite ordinarily human).

These examples emphasise that false friends can be used to overtly dogwhistle, and that this is actually done in political contexts. In addition to overt dogwhistles, according to Saul (2018), there are also covert dogwhistles. An example Saul mentions is the use of the term ‘government spending’ in the US. Since the 1980s, when the effort was made by the Republican Party to associate government spending with a benefit for racial minorities, this term has served as a racial dogwhistle. However, it does so mostly unnoticed by the group targeted by the dogwhistle, i.e. White Americans on the racially conservative end of the spectrum. Although most of these voters are highly unlikely to openly admit to being racist (both to the public and to themselves), they often share a belief system referred to as racial resentment by psychologists (see, e.g. Tesler and Sears 2010). It could be shown that together with the use of the term ‘government spending’ in political ads and speeches this resentment correlates with an even more racially conservative voting behaviour (Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2002). Since the members of the group targeted by the dogwhistle are mostly unaware of this fact, Saul classifies such dogwhistles as covert intentional dogwhistles. As such, these speech acts are about raising certain attitudes as salient rather than communicating a coded message.⁹

We believe that ‘government spending’ also constitutes a linguistic false friend, in this case serving as a covert racial dogwhistle. As such it is intended to influence the voting behaviour of White Americans on the racially conservative end of the spectrum. However, referring to Valentino, Hutchings, and White (2002), Saul (2018) notes that it is nevertheless possible to use the term ‘government spending’ without priming racial attitudes, e.g. by using counter-stereotypes undermining the dogwhistle. In such neutralising circumstances the term simply refers to money spent by the public sector on the acquisition of goods and provision of services such as education, healthcare, social protection and defence. We believe that this makes the use where ‘government spending’ primes racial attitudes a false friend of this original neutral use of the term.

The examples discussed in this section suggest that there are dogwhistles using false friends, in particular in political contexts, emphasising the importance of a better understanding of the linguistic phenomenon of false friends. Providing such an understanding will be our aim in the next section.

4. False friends and speaker intentions

As we have seen in Section 2, a theory of false friends has to provide an explanation of the fact that speakers of a language L can (mis)use an expression e of L with the meaning of a false friend from a different language, dialect or sociolect $L^{\prime }$. Since over time this can even lead to e acquiring the meaning of its false friend, such an explanation should then be developed into an explanation of semantic change due to false friends. A case in point was the German word ‘Konzept’, whose original meaning was plan or draft. Because of the influence of English on the German language, German speakers started to use the term to speak about notions due to its English false friend ‘concept’. This has led to ‘Konzept’ acquiring the additional meaning notion of its English false friend.

Such semantic changes due to false friends can be compared to reference changes in connection with proper names. A famous example is ‘Madagascar’. As Evans (1973) notes, the term originally designated a portion of the African mainland. A hearsay report of Malay or Arab sailors misunderstood by Marco Polo has then led to a change in reference, resulting in our current use of the term as a name of the great African Island (see also Taylor 1898). The standard explanation of such reference changes developed, among others, by Evans (1973, 1982), Devitt (1981, 1996) and Kripke (1980) resorts to Kripke's (1977) distinction of speaker's reference and semantic reference. According to Kripke (1977, 264), ‘the semantic referent of a designator (without indexicals) is given by a general intention of the speaker to refer to a certain object whenever the designator is used’. The speaker's referent, on the other hand, ‘is given by a specific intention, on a given occasion, to refer to a certain object’ (Kripke 1977, 264). For example, if I see Smith raking the leaves, but mistakenly believe that Smith is Jones and, therefore, utter the sentence ‘Jones is raking the leaves’, then, on this occasion, I have the specific intention to refer to Smith with my use of ‘Jones’. However, I also have the general intention to use the name as it is used in my language community, i.e. as a name for Jones. If the specific intentions of a majority of speakers (on given occasions) repeatedly deviate from the general intention in this way, the explanation goes, they can override the general intention. Hence, over time the semantic reference will adjust to the speakers' reference.¹⁰

This explanation of reference changes can be spelled out in different ways, depending on how we explain speaker's reference (see, e.g. Devitt 1981, 1996; Evans 1973, 1982). Independent of the details, the similarities between reference changes in connection with proper names and semantic changes due to false friends are striking. In both cases, an established convention to use an expression in a certain way is overridden due to a misuse of the term, which can be intentional. We could even think of a proper name changing its reference due to a false friend. After all, in most or many cases semantic changes due to false friends also result in a change in reference. For example, if German speakers repeatedly use the term ‘Konzept’ to speak about notions due to its English false friend, this can result in the semantic reference of the German word ‘Konzept’ adjusting to the semantic reference of its English false friend. This suggests that the above explanation of reference changes in connection with proper names can be extended to reference changes due to false friends. Accordingly, when German speakers start to use the term ‘Konzept’ to refer to notions due to its English false friend, their general intention is still to use the term as it is used in their language community, i.e. as a term for plans or drafts. However, on given occasions, the speakers start to use the term with the specific intention to refer to notions. Over time this can then lead to the specific intentions overriding or adding to the general intention, i.e. the semantic reference of the German term ‘Konzept’ will adjust to the semantic reference of its English false friend.

Following Grice (1989), it is common to distinguish more generally between linguistic or semantic meaning on the one hand and speaker meaning on the other. The linguistic meaning of an expression is what fully competent speakers have a grasp of. It is a standing, context-invariant property belonging to an expression-type that makes it possible to use the expression to perform linguistic acts. Speaker meaning, on the other hand, is what the speaker intentionally communicates on a given occasion (i.e. ‘S meant that p’). Following this, we could extend the above explanation of reference changes due to false friends to changes in linguistic or semantic meaning in general. Accordingly, when native German and native Spanish speakers misuse the English term ‘eventually’ with the meaning of its German (‘eventuell’) or Spanish (‘eventualmente’) false friend, the linguistic meaning of the term is still finally or in the end. However, the speakers mean possibly or perhaps when using the term. If this error were more common, over time it could even lead to the semantic meaning of ‘eventually’ in English adjusting, respectively, to the semantic meaning of its German or Spanish false friend.

Note that speaker meaning is not something subjective, which is only accessible to the speaker. If someone utters ‘Could you please pass me the orange’ pointing to a lemon, the addressee will notice that what the speaker means is if they (the addressee) could pass them (the speaker) the lemon. Understanding the speaker meaning of an utterance in this way requires more than linguistic competence. It requires a certain pragmatic competence. A hearer unaware of the context of the speaker's utterance would not be in a position to calculate the speaker's specific intention on this occasion, but would only have access to the linguistic meaning of their utterance. Something very similar is true of uses of false friends, emphasising again that the linguistic phenomenon of false friends has to be explained using the Gricean distinction of speaker meaning and linguistic meaning. A speaker competent in languages L and $L^{\prime }$ who knows the context of utterance should typically be able to recognise when an expression e of L is used with the meaning of a false friend from $L^{\prime }$. For example, a use of the German word ‘Konzept’ with the meaning notion of its English false friend ‘concept’ could typically be recognised by a competent speaker of both English and German (who is aware of the context of utterance) even before ‘Konzept’ acquired the additional meaning notion of its English false friend. The same is usually not true of a speaker unaware of the false friend or the context of utterance.

We believe that this fact is deliberately exploited by dogwhistles using false friends. Accordingly, the private, coded message of such dogwhistles is a speaker meaning of the respective utterance which is only accessible to a subset of the general audience with knowledge of the languages generating the false friend, typically a standard language and one of its sociolects, as well as specific pragmatic knowledge about the context of utterance. The other conversational parties will only understand the message provided by the linguistic meaning of the utterance, typically in the standard language. For instance, the vast majority of the general audience only understood the message provided by the linguistic meaning of Bush's utterance of (1) in Standard English.

(1)	Yet there is power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.

They did not understand its speaker meaning made explicit by (2), as this also required knowledge of the sociolect of fundamentalists (and specific pragmatic knowledge about the context of utterance, such as Bush's 2003 State of the Union address) in order to calculate Bush's specific intention on this occasion.

(2)	Yet there is power, the power of Christ, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.

In this way, speaker meaning provides a good explanation of the distinguishing properties of political dogwhistles, in particular of those using false friends. Although a speaker's specific intention on a given occasion can in principle be calculated, this requires much more than linguistic competence, which is why it is not automatically accessible to all the speakers understanding the linguistic meaning of the dogwhistle and, thus, can easily be denied by the dogwhistling speaker.

This explanation can be extended to overt unintentional dogwhistles. Although in these cases the speaker does not have a specific intention corresponding to the private message of the dogwhistle, the context of utterance could be such that it is reasonable for hearers to ascribe such an intention to the speaker. For example, if news reporters repeat Trump's opposition to political correctness, it could be reasonable for White power supporters to ascribe the intention to express that Trump shares the racist concerns of White power supporters to these reporters.

How do covert dogwhistles using false friends, such as ‘government spending’, fit into this picture? We maintain that in the case of ‘government spending’ the dogwhistling speaker uses the term with its standard linguistic meaning, referring to money spent by the public sector on the acquisition of goods and provision of services such as education, healthcare, social protection and defence. In addition, in the case of an intentional dogwhistle, the speaker also has the specific intention to prime racial attitudes. Since no update on the part of the hearers is required in order to realise this specific intention (after all, priming does not necessarily happen consciously), in this way, the distinction between linguistic meaning and speaker meaning also provides an explanation of the fact that ‘government spending’ works as a covert dogwhistle.

Although we believe that many dogwhistles use linguistic false friends, we do not want to exclude that there are other linguistic mechanisms that can be used to convey a coded message.¹¹ When it comes to dogwhistles using linguistic false friends our explanation using the Gricean distinction of speaker meaning and semantic meaning shows that we neither need conversational implicatures, as Saul (2018) suggests, nor some kind of conventional linguistic meaning, as Stanley (2015) suggests, to explain that these speech acts convey a coded message. The use of false friends in political dogwhistles would also be what Khoo (2018) classifies as a use of code words. However, we do not agree with Khoo's assessment that they work by triggering inferences in the audience which they are not used to communicate, as speaker meaning is part of what is communicated by an expression. Hence, if linguistic false friends work in the way we suggest in this paper, i.e. by exploiting Gricean speaker meaning, we have to completely rethink the way (political) dogwhistling using false friends works.

5. Conclusions

Using Grice's distinction between speaker meaning and linguistic meaning, in this paper, we have developed an explanation of semantic changes due to false friends. Accordingly, the existence of a false friend (in particular in highly influential languages, such as English) can lead to speakers of a language L repeatedly (mis)using an expression e of L with a speaker meaning corresponding to the linguistic meaning of the false friend. Over time this can then lead to the speaker meaning overriding or adding to the linguistic meaning of e in L. This explanation has some similarities with the explanation of reference changes in connection with proper names. By pointing out that the speaker meaning of an expression (on a given occasion) is not something subjective, but is, in principle, accessible to other speakers, the distinction between speaker meaning and linguistic meaning provides an explanation of political dogwhistles using false friends. According to this explanation, the coded message of such dogwhistles is a speaker meaning which is only accessible to a subset of the general audience with knowledge of the languages generating the false friend, as well as specific pragmatic knowledge about the context of utterance. This suggests that more attention should be given to pragmatic circumstances when evaluating uses of political dogwhistles, which, in turn, can lead to a completely different assessment of the speech acts performed with such an utterance than if we only focus on its linguistic meaning. This makes it more difficult for speakers to deny the performance of potentially problematic speech acts, something that is of particular importance in the context of political dogwhistling.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term was introduced by Maxime Kœssler and Jules Derocquigny in their 1928 book Les faux amis: ou, Les trahisons du vocabulaire anglais (False friends, or, the betrayals of English vocabulary).

2 The Brothers' Grimm Deutsches Wörterbuch, which has been published from 1852 to 1961, defines ‘concept’ (with this different spelling) clearly as draft, while the primary source for words of the contemporary German Language, the Duden, adds abstracted idea to the other two identified meanings draft and plan.

3 There are other examples in Scandinavian languages. For instance, the Danish word ‘frokost’ means lunch, whereas the Norwegian word ‘frokost’ means breakfast.

4 The fact that youth language borrows expressions from the respective standard language while changing its meaning can be compared to the fact that bilingual false friends can arise from loanwords, such as in the case of ‘Angst’ discussed above.

5 For a classification of dogwhistles, see also Witten (2023).

6 We believe that in this respect the etymology of ‘political correctness’ can be compared to that of the German word ‘geil’. Both expressions were borrowed from the respective standard language by a subgroup while (significantly) changing its meaning. In the case of ‘geil’, whose original meaning in Standard German was sexually aroused, the term was borrowed by the youth to express positive, enthusiastic evaluation. In the case of ‘political correctness’, whose original meaning was elimination of language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race), the term was borrowed by the political right (in particular in the US) to express their opposition to left-wing anti-discrimination efforts, among other things.

7 The term ‘political correctness’ has a history reaching back far into the twentieth century. But by the end of that century, it has been increasingly used in a pejorative manner by a conservative public in order to criticise what they see as ‘liberal censorship’.

8 According to Saul (2018, 363), Bush in this way signals to fundamentalists that he is one of them.

9 Just like overt dogwhistles, covert dogwhistles can also be unintentional. After all, a great variety of political topics cannot be discussed without using the term ‘government spending’.

10 Note that this requires a collective misuse of the term over a longer period of time by a critical mass of the language users in question, i.e. what Putnam (1975) and Rauti (2012) call ‘experts’ and Evans (1982) calls ‘producers’.

11 Obviously, there are many non-linguistic mechanisms for dogwhistling, such as the neo-Nazi Kühnengruß (Kühnen salute).