scissor statement

English

Etymology

Coined by American psychiatrist Scott Alexander Siskind (writing as "Scott Alexander") in his 2018 short story Sort By Controversial, where he wrote: "In some dead language, scissor shares a root with schism. A scissor is a schism-er, a schism-creator."

Noun

scissor statement (plural scissor statements) (Internet slang)

1. A polarising and incendiary topic, opinion or phrase.

   The Ground Zero mosque was a scissor statement that divided Americans.

   • 2021, Charles Arthur, Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All‎^[1], →ISBN:

     Brexit, by its nature, was a perfect scissor statement for almost everyone in the UK: the population was split into ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’, and mutual outrage at the beliefs and actions of the other side became commonplace, as did personal abuse.

   • 2023 May 5, @JeremiahDJohns, Twitter‎^[2], archived from the original on 2024-04-10:

     I'm not sure there's been any recent news event that's as much of a Scissor Statement as the homeless subway death.
     
     Reading different accounts on this, you'd think they were describing two completely different incidents. Like this was designed to be maximally divisive.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:scissor statement.