Before I even came across the term “weasel word” in Friedrich Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit (though he credited it to unnamed Americans), I was interested in words that can be used to mislead and misdirect people’s understanding with regard to public policy.

For example, Hayek cited 160 words whose meanings can be altered by simply adding “social” as a modifier. And I have long been struck by one of his examples in particular–the term “social justice,” because it is in direct conflict with the traditional meaning of “justice” (“to give each his own”), so that “social justice” means “injustice” in a very important way.

Examples of weasel words include phrases, such as “quid pro quo.” The term suggests an exchange of equal values, but that is misleading about market exchanges, because all parties to voluntary exchanges expect that their benefits will exceed their costs. Viewing something with mutual gains as something producing no gains dramatically misstates reality. It blinds people to the wealth destroyed when government interferes with voluntary exchanges, as with taxes, tariffs, regulations, and the like, (which economists call welfare costs or excess burdens).