emotive conjugation a humorous verbal conjugation, designed to expose and mock first-person bias, in which ostensibly the same action is described in successively more pejorative terms through the first, second, and third persons (e.g., ‘I am firm, You are stubborn, He is a pig-headed fool’).
This example was used by Russell in the course of a BBC Radio ‘Brains’ Trust’ discussion in 1948. It was popularized later that year when The New Statesman ran a competition for other examples. An ‘unprecedented response’ brought in 2,000 entries, including: ‘I am well informed, You listen to gossip, He believes what he reads in the paper’; and ‘I went to Oxford, You went to Cambridge, He went to the London School of Economics’ (Russell was educated at Cambridge and later taught there). See also RUSSEL. N.G.