What Does It Mean to Weaponize a Word?

an exploration of how folks can manipulate words + alter perception

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

I received a text from a friend, telling me about someone I went no-contact with years ago. We’ll call her No-Contact Nina. Deciding to go no-contact with Nina came after a persistent pattern of bullying, borderline abusive behavior. While I categorized it as bullying and told others it was perpetuated by Nina, some folks still interpreted the tension as relational beef between two parties. As I had shared friends with Nina, I told a few of them, “I don’t expect you to choose sides. I’m not asking you to pick me over her. I’m not here to police friendships, but I do hope you respect the fact that I keep her at a distance. And I’ll ask you to see her bullying for what it is if and when the time comes.”

I was articulating my boundaries. And sure enough, the time came.

The friend who originally messaged me shared that he received communication from Nina pertaining to his friendship with me. Nina told him she had “boundaries.” Because of Nina’s boundaries, this mutual friend could no longer be friends with her if he was friends with me. The implicit, unspoken message was that Nina’s boundaries required my friend to change behaviors. 😬

I put my head in my hands, and texted my friend back. 🤦‍♀️

💬 “That’s not how boundaries work.”¹

How to Weaponize a Word

This exchange with my friend (spoiler alert: he’s still my friend) happened in summer of 2024. However, an incredibly similar but more public situation was in the news a year prior. In July 2023, Sarah Brady, an ex-girlfriend of actor Jonah Hill, posted screenshots of text messages between herself and Hill to her Instagram Stories. The screenshots show a conversation where Hill gave Brady a list of expectations, including behaviors SHE needed to change, because of HIS “boundaries” for their romantic partnership.

Because it bears repeating: controlling the actions of others and calling it “boundaries” is not how boundaries work.

Writer Aditi Shrikant with CNBC wrote about the exchange between Brady and Hill and had Denver therapist Lisa Marie Bobby weigh in. Bobby noted that “boundaries are about your own actions, not someone else’s.” She also mentions that weaponized therapy speak happens when “people take ideas that look, feel, and sometimes sound quite virtuous and healthy, but then use them in ways that effectively control or harm other people and relationships.” Ultimately, Bobby says that this sort of weaponization is misappropriation of an idea that efficiently shuts down conversation.²

Bobby’s mention of shutting down a conversation reminded me of Amanda Montell’s 2021 book Cultish wherein she describes how cults and cultish communities use thought-terminating clichés. Thought-terminating clichés within Christianity are something I’ve written on previously. You can check that out here. ⬇️

Thought-Terminating Clichés in Christianity

Thought-terminating clichés (TTC) weaponize language to shift power dynamics. They use words to manipulate another person’s (or the public’s) perception so that the perpetrator can abscond accountability and relational responsibility. A TTC makes it seem like there is a clear right and wrong. Challenging the TTC makes others perceive the dissenter is in the wrong. The risk of dissent is ostracism by the group.

So, potential dissenters often choose not to dissent. Because of this, TTCs and weaponized words are incredibly effective. Manipulative folks know this.

Regarding Brady and Hill, Brady could have pushed back in the moment against Hill’s suggestions to communicate something like, “You can’t control what I post.” However, Hill had already founded his argument on the value and virtue of boundaries. Thus, the implicit (and manipulative) message communicates, “If you don’t do what I say, you’re crossing my boundaries.”³

Again, this is not how boundaries works, BUT this is how weaponizing the word “boundaries” works.

Implicit & Explicit Communication

What we communicate and how we receive communication are usually a combination of explicit and implicit communication. There are the words explicitly spoken and then there is evidence of the implicit beliefs revealed through behavior and body language. (A lot of folks familiar with anti-racism work know that folks are often more attuned to explicit racism, but they have to learn more about the nuances of racism to understand implicit racism.)

When explicit and implicit messaging communicate the same thing, there is alignment, congruence, or integration. Alternatively, when explicit and implicit communication run counter to each other, they create cognitive dissonance.⁴ When cognitive dissonance exists, a person receiving dissonant communication questions their own perception. This is a precursor to “gaslighting.”⁵

The rub? Intentional misalignment in explicit and implicit messaging works in a manipulative person’s favor.

“The Art and Science of Manipulative Language”

In her journal article “The Art and Science of Manipulative Language,” linguist Viviana Masia writes that implicit communication occurs “whenever some content of a message … is left unexpressed or underspecified.”⁶ Masia studies how the human brain works in understanding communication. Our brains are conditioned to process information in different ways when it comes to explicit and implicit types of messaging. Masia shares that when communication is explicit—when a communicator plainly states what they mean—the receiver’s brain works harder as they evaluate for validity.

BUT! When communication is implicit, the brain works less by taking cognitive short-cuts to do some of the interpretative work that the communicator did not do. This makes the receiver a co-participant in the interpretative choices of implicit communication.⁷

Roping you into ownership of the interpretation is how manipulative communicators leverage implicit messaging. When you have part “ownership” in the interpretation of THEIR implied messaging, you are less likely to challenge their assertions.

What Can We Do?

Therapy speak words aren’t the only words that can be weaponized. Words that implicitly include value statements are effective when leveraged for deception. If you’re an OG reader of mine, familiar with my story of spiritual abuse or if you’ve experienced spiritual abuse yourself, you may have your own list of Christian words that have been weaponized. (I also mention a few of these in my Thought-Terminating Clichés Substack Post but also in Othered.)

The problem is communication is a human need. We need to be able to communicate with one another. Words are a pragmatic part of societies and cultures, but they are also wells of creativity. They can cut us or cure what ails us.⁸ Weaponized words disrupt the beauty of relationships, the beauty of words, and our relationships to certain words.

We can do something. We can grow in our discernment, and when we sense something isn’t right, we can say something. Many folks understandably ask, “How can I grow in discernment?” I could give you prescriptions to follow: Ask better questions. Ask more questions. Pay attention to power dynamics. Look for both explicit and implicit forms of communication.

But strengthening your discernment and even employing some of these suggestions requires more spiritual formation work.

With many of the folks I work with in spiritual direction, to become more discerning requires that you be more intentional about who you are becoming. In other words, you want to be discerning, but what values guide your discerning process? Where are your ethical boundaries? Do you have ethical boundaries? Have you named them for yourself? At their core, narcissists are discerning; they learn, scan, and research people so they can effectively lovebomb and entrap others in dependent relationships. Narcissists are discerning so they can exploit.

Holistic folks do not exploit others. In fact, they are intentional about dismantling exploitative practices and systems, including the systems of language. Holistic people ask questions not to capitalize on a topic or leverage their relationships with folks. Holistically formed people ask questions so they can be a part of building a better world. Holistic people ask questions so they can identify the people and methods which break our world.

What are the problems you see in the world? What do you believe the solutions might be? These are worldview-building, identity-forming questions. Knowing who are you and having dreams about the sort of person you’re becoming is the foundation for becoming a more holistically discerning person. When you become more secure in who you are, your internal stability helps you discern when people, perception, or words are being manipulated and weaponized. That internal stability may help you find the boldness to speak when it’s time to say something.

I clocked what No-contact Nina tried to do when I received my friend’s text. She used “boundaries” as a thought-terminating cliché to 1.) remain unchallenged, 2.) continue her abusive bullying to isolate me, and 3.) try to manipulate my friend’s actions. Thankfully, I trust my friend and his discernment. He’s an expansive, holistic person. And he clocked Nina’s toxicity, too.

Expansive people—people who don’t exploit others—these folk exist. We can be these people. And I believe each of us can pull tremendous wisdom from the well of our lived experiences to find one another so that we really can build a better world.

With you and for you,

UPDATE: An earlier version of this Substack had Masia’s article improperly linked. This current version has the correct link to the American Scientist article.

Hi! I mentioned spiritual direction above. I do have very limited available for spiritual directees. If you’re interested 👀 , click here: ⬇️

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1. The story about my friend and Nina is shared with my friend’s permission. He read and approved the above prior to publication. Nina is probably reading this. I did not cross my boundaries to seek her permission. In the words of Anne Lamott, “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Leave me alone, Nina. You know who you are.

2. You can find more on weaponized therapy speak at https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-use-therapy-speak.

3. I don’t have room to explore this here, but weaponized speak is an effective way to employ DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse the roles of Victim & Offender). Weaponized speak incapacitates a victim, leaving them without an option to advocate for themselves because doing so would make them look like the conflict’s offender.

4. You can read more about cognitive dissonance from the man who coined the phrase JSTOR. You can create a free JSTOR account if you don’t otherwise have access. You can read up to 100 free JSTOR articles every so many days, which is awesome.

5. Read peer-reviewed research on gaslighting at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122419874843

6. Viviana Masia, “The Art and Science of Manipulative Language.,” American Scientist 110, no. 5 (2022): 300-305. https://doi.org/10.1511/2022.110.5.300.

7. I encourage you to read Masia's article in full. It is a wellspring of information.

8. If you read Othered, you’ll also see that I wrote something similar there.