See whataboutism in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for whataboutism meaning in English (7.1kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "what about",
"3": "ism"
},
"expansion": "what about + -ism",
"name": "suffix"
}
],
"etymology_text": "what about + -ism",
"forms": [
{
"form": "whataboutisms",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "~"
},
"expansion": "whataboutism (countable and uncountable, plural whataboutisms)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
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"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms suffixed with -ism",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Mandarin terms with non-redundant manual transliterations",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant manual transliterations",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Logical fallacies",
"orig": "en:Logical fallacies",
"parents": [
"Logic",
"Rhetoric",
"Formal sciences",
"Philosophy",
"Language",
"Sciences",
"All topics",
"Communication",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "whataboutist"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1994, Joe Austin, “The obdurate and the obstinate”, in Tony Parker, editors, May the Lord in His Mercy be Kind to Belfast, Henry Holt & Co, page 136",
"text": "And I'd no time at all for 'What aboutism' - you know, people who said 'Yes, but what about what's been done to us? ... That had nothing to do with it, and if you got into it you were defending the indefensible.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 January 31, Edward Lucas, “Whataboutism - Come again, Comrade?”, in The Economist",
"text": "Soviet propagandists during the cold war were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed 'whataboutism'.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 December 11, Staff writer, “The West is in danger of losing its moral authority”, in European Voice, retrieved 2017-07-03",
"text": "'Whataboutism' was a favourite tactic of Soviet propagandists during the old Cold War. Any criticism of the Soviet Union’s internal aggression or external repression was met with a 'what about?' some crime of the West, from slavery to the Monroe doctrine.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 August 25, Robert Tracinski, “Crime: Understanding Ferguson: Fort Apache, Missouri”, in The Federalist",
"text": "Back in the Cold War, we had a term for this: 'whataboutism.' Whenever anyone criticized the Soviets about the gulags, their mouthpieces would start a sentence with 'What about...' and go on to talk about racism and poverty and whatever bad thing they could think of that was happening in the United States.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016 July 24, Jill Dougherty, “Olympic doping ban unleashes fury in Moscow”, in CNN",
"text": "There's another attitude ... that many Russians seem to share, what used to be called in the Soviet Union 'whataboutism,' in other words, 'who are you to call the kettle black?'",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Andreas Umland, “The Ukrainian Government's Memory Institute Against the West”, in IndraStra Global, volume 3, number 3, →ISSN, retrieved 2017-07-04, page 7",
"text": "what was known during Soviet times, as 'whataboutism'",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017 March 17, Danielle Kurtzleben, “Trump Embraces One Of Russia's Favorite Propaganda Tactics — Whataboutism”, in NPR, retrieved 2017-05-20",
"text": "This particular brand of changing the subject is called 'whataboutism' — a simple rhetorical tactic heavily used by the Soviet Union and, later, Russia.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A logical fallacy where criticisms are deflected by raising corresponding criticisms of the opposite side."
],
"id": "en-whataboutism-en-noun-MWJTNMjA",
"links": [
[
"logical fallacy",
"logical fallacy"
],
[
"criticism",
"criticism"
],
[
"deflect",
"deflect"
]
],
"related": [
{
"word": "bothsidesism"
},
{
"word": "whateverism"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "tu quoque"
},
{
"word": "whataboutery"
}
],
"tags": [
"countable",
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "比爛主義"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "bǐlànzhǔyì",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"neologism",
"slang"
],
"word": "比烂主义"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "臭蟲論"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "chòuchónglùn",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "臭虫论"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "jij-bak"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutism"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutisme"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutismi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "whataboutisme"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "qu’en-est-ilisme"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Whataboutism"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "viszonvádaskodás"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "figyelemelterelő visszakérdezés"
},
{
"code": "id",
"lang": "Indonesian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutisme"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "benaltrismo"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "そっちこそどうなんだ主義"
},
{
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"note": "not fully equivalent",
"roman": "multagi",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "물타기"
},
{
"code": "fa",
"lang": "Persian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "پسچهایسم"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "votɛbautízm",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "вотэбаути́зм"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "perevód strélok",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "перево́д стре́лок"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "kaknasčotízm",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "какнасчёти́зм"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "pripletánije",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "приплета́ние"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "y tú más"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"common-gender",
"neologism"
],
"word": "whataboutism"
},
{
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "jakščodojízm",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "якщодої́зм"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"whataboutism"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/wət.əˈbaʊt.ɪzəm/"
},
{
"ipa": "[wə.ɾəˈbaʊ.ɾɪzm̩]"
}
],
"word": "whataboutism"
}
{
"derived": [
{
"word": "whataboutist"
}
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "what about",
"3": "ism"
},
"expansion": "what about + -ism",
"name": "suffix"
}
],
"etymology_text": "what about + -ism",
"forms": [
{
"form": "whataboutisms",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "~"
},
"expansion": "whataboutism (countable and uncountable, plural whataboutisms)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "bothsidesism"
},
{
"word": "whateverism"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English 5-syllable words",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English terms suffixed with -ism",
"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with quotations",
"English uncountable nouns",
"Mandarin terms with non-redundant manual transliterations",
"en:Logical fallacies"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1994, Joe Austin, “The obdurate and the obstinate”, in Tony Parker, editors, May the Lord in His Mercy be Kind to Belfast, Henry Holt & Co, page 136",
"text": "And I'd no time at all for 'What aboutism' - you know, people who said 'Yes, but what about what's been done to us? ... That had nothing to do with it, and if you got into it you were defending the indefensible.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 January 31, Edward Lucas, “Whataboutism - Come again, Comrade?”, in The Economist",
"text": "Soviet propagandists during the cold war were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed 'whataboutism'.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 December 11, Staff writer, “The West is in danger of losing its moral authority”, in European Voice, retrieved 2017-07-03",
"text": "'Whataboutism' was a favourite tactic of Soviet propagandists during the old Cold War. Any criticism of the Soviet Union’s internal aggression or external repression was met with a 'what about?' some crime of the West, from slavery to the Monroe doctrine.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 August 25, Robert Tracinski, “Crime: Understanding Ferguson: Fort Apache, Missouri”, in The Federalist",
"text": "Back in the Cold War, we had a term for this: 'whataboutism.' Whenever anyone criticized the Soviets about the gulags, their mouthpieces would start a sentence with 'What about...' and go on to talk about racism and poverty and whatever bad thing they could think of that was happening in the United States.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016 July 24, Jill Dougherty, “Olympic doping ban unleashes fury in Moscow”, in CNN",
"text": "There's another attitude ... that many Russians seem to share, what used to be called in the Soviet Union 'whataboutism,' in other words, 'who are you to call the kettle black?'",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Andreas Umland, “The Ukrainian Government's Memory Institute Against the West”, in IndraStra Global, volume 3, number 3, →ISSN, retrieved 2017-07-04, page 7",
"text": "what was known during Soviet times, as 'whataboutism'",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017 March 17, Danielle Kurtzleben, “Trump Embraces One Of Russia's Favorite Propaganda Tactics — Whataboutism”, in NPR, retrieved 2017-05-20",
"text": "This particular brand of changing the subject is called 'whataboutism' — a simple rhetorical tactic heavily used by the Soviet Union and, later, Russia.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A logical fallacy where criticisms are deflected by raising corresponding criticisms of the opposite side."
],
"links": [
[
"logical fallacy",
"logical fallacy"
],
[
"criticism",
"criticism"
],
[
"deflect",
"deflect"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "tu quoque"
},
{
"word": "whataboutery"
}
],
"tags": [
"countable",
"uncountable"
],
"wikipedia": [
"whataboutism"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/wət.əˈbaʊt.ɪzəm/"
},
{
"ipa": "[wə.ɾəˈbaʊ.ɾɪzm̩]"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "比爛主義"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "bǐlànzhǔyì",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"neologism",
"slang"
],
"word": "比烂主义"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "臭蟲論"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "chòuchónglùn",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "臭虫论"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "jij-bak"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutism"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutisme"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutismi"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "whataboutisme"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "qu’en-est-ilisme"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Whataboutism"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "viszonvádaskodás"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "figyelemelterelő visszakérdezés"
},
{
"code": "id",
"lang": "Indonesian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "whataboutisme"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "benaltrismo"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "そっちこそどうなんだ主義"
},
{
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"note": "not fully equivalent",
"roman": "multagi",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "물타기"
},
{
"code": "fa",
"lang": "Persian",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "پسچهایسم"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "votɛbautízm",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "вотэбаути́зм"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "perevód strélok",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "перево́д стре́лок"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "kaknasčotízm",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "какнасчёти́зм"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "pripletánije",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "приплета́ние"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"word": "y tú más"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"common-gender",
"neologism"
],
"word": "whataboutism"
},
{
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "jakščodojízm",
"sense": "propaganda technique",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "якщодої́зм"
}
],
"word": "whataboutism"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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