"One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: 'just add the word modified'."
...a gun person’s imagination gnaws at that word 'modified', spinning up the cleverest possible explanation for how the gun in question could behave as depicted.
I haven't listened to the podcast episode yet, but the excerpt I'm quoting from intrigues me. Are there words that propagandists use to trigger the same effect? Eg a word that conscripts political reporters into adding flesh to the bones of "tax relief"?