Any candidate who uses the word "optics" instead of "appearances" has lost my vote.

[Orrex]

12. We're going to have to disagree

it is not corporate. Optics has been a theme of analysis for a long time.

Doesn't matter. All kinds of academic jargon bubbles around in that incestuous pool without being thrust into public consciousness. They're harmless in that specific purpose-specific evironment. "Proactive" was around for many decades before corporatists decided to coopt it and make it vile.

For that matter, "optics" would have been nauseating even if (especially?) used in an academic context to make a paper, speech or presentation seem more smarter.

It did not come out of the press, they adopted it. It did not come out of think tanks, they are late adoptees.

Doesn't matter. They're its parents now, so they're responsible.

It is not smarmy. It is just not descriptive, at least imho.

It's smarmy for the reason I mentioned above--it's expressly used to give an air of intellectualism where none might be justified.

But anger over that word is, imho, a waste of time. Tweety, for example, like he does every four years, will extensively use it. It is these days lazy how often it is used.

Well, that's one of those YMMV things. With respect, you've raised a few points over the years that seem flatly meaningless to me, but that's how it goes. I'm sure I've posted plenty of stuff that's of no interest to you, too.