I used the word "regime" and did not expect this reaction...

A few days ago, I wrote a LinkedIn post about Trump and MBS's meeting. At some point, I used the word "regime".

I used the term regime as a neutral descriptor: a government, a system, a mode of power.

As some of you may know, I am a French native. I grew up in France, I think in French, I dream in French, I complain like a French person (lol).

In French, the word régime doesn’t carry any emotional charge. It simply is a classification.

A regime can be democratic, authoritarian, technocratic, tribal. The word itself is not a judgment. So this is how I used this word in my post.

This same day, I received a private message:

Hello Oriane,

Your thought provoking posts are a massive stimulant for me - thanks for being refreshingly candid and keeping an alternative yet holistic view across posts.

With today’s posts of the POTUS - H.E MBS, I’m just writing to ask you why you choose to term the KSA government as a regime?

With all the mind benders you pose, I find it rather ironic that a person of your vision and thought sticks to the same, creased and biased labeling of selective governments as regimes.

When the US bulled their way into Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan to name 3, should the world consider labeling those POTUS’ as regimes too?

I’m hoping you have the time to write back or give me your views through a post.

I re-read the message a few times and I was like... what is he talking about?

I felt like I was missing something, so I thought:

"is there a connotation to the word "regime" in English that I ignore?"

I opened Wikipedia... Regime is defined in the same way I used it.

It says how power is organized - not whether it's good or bad.

I dig deeper... and realized that in English, the word "Regime" can have a negative connotation. I started to read all the conversations in this Quora forum feed and discovered a whole dimension to the word "regime" that I completely ignored.

A political philosopher confirmed briefly:

“Regime” can have a negative connotation in English, but political theorists typically use it to mean any government plus such closely related entities as the press and parties and prevailing political norms and traditions. Regimes can be legitimate, even excellent. - Peter Levine

So in case, like me, you did not know... now you know 😅: in English using the word "regime" drips with suspicion.

It smells of tyranny, of oppression, of undemocratic power.
A regime is something to be overthrown, to be sanctioned, to be feared.

And this - this - is the dangerous power of language.

My post, rather pragmatic and analytical, has taken a whole other resonance for some readers.

But... when did regime become an insult?

How one word can shift the entire perception of a message, depending on WHO's reading it?

Not because of what it says, but because of what people have been taught to hear.

I was left wondering: how many people - like him - perceived my post and attributed intention I did not have?

I have no clue.

So let’s be clear:

No, I did not use “regime” as an insult... I used it in its academic, analytical meaning. Maybe naïve.

But the fact is that, to some, it was received as an insult - and that’s where things get interesting. Because in the grey zone, language is a weapon.

It frames, distorts, seduces, manipulates, polarizes.

Next Friday, in The Grey Zone, we’re going deep into this.

Language as a weapon, language as a trap. And how, without realizing it, we’ve all become soldiers in a linguistic war.

You want to play the game? Learn the rules.
And the first rule is this: words are never just words.