Dictionary

scissor statement en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

Coined by American psychiatrist and blogger 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.”

Meanings

1. (Internet) A polarising and incendiary topic, opinion or phrase.
   • 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. 2023 May 5, @JeremiahDJohns, Twitter, archived from the original on 15 Jun 2024:
   • The world avoids falling into perpetual low-grade warfare only because she accidentally creates a scissor statement that tears apart the company before its work is finished. The story captured the sense of social media as a rolling referendum on every subject under the sun. 2023 July 30, Helen Lewis, “The Weird, Fragmented World of Social Media After Twitter”, in The Atlantic:
   • 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. 2021, Charles Arthur, Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All, →ISBN:
   • The Ground Zero mosque was a scissor statement that divided Americans.

Forms