Richard Weaver suggests that there are certain terms which hold such value that they will meet with approval from any audience, and in 1953 he provided a list of such words that included progress, fact, science, modern, and efficient. These terms generally continue to have appeal to a wide range of audiences today, often serving as feel-good words that seem to promise some value. At the same time, though, this post-modern age is one in which formerly accepted truths and meanings are constantly challenged, and this means that these words do not have the power they once had. For many audiences, indeed, these words are not believed at all, nor have they been replaced by other words that are as widely accepted as they used to be. It is simply a more cynical and questioning era, making it more difficult to persuade.
One reason these words have had such power is because they have antonyms which represent negatives which people want to eliminate or change--regression, lies, superstition, ancient, and inefficient, for instance. These words are not losing power because their opposites are gaining ground; rather, they are losing power because different people are questioning the meaning of the words themselves. We might all be in favor of progress, for instance, but we might argue over what constituted progress. We have all heard political leaders pitching massive changes in institutions, our infrastructure, or some other entity or program and claiming it is progress. They often claim that those opposed to change are opposed to progress, but in truth, change and progress are not synonyms. We might institute a change that many would not see as progress at all but as somehow making life worse. Indeed, it is precisely because this word has been misused so often in political discourse in an effort to persuade that it is losing its persuasive power.
The same is true of "fact," for we often hear people claiming some statement is a f...