jack t ripper wrote:
Sometimes conciseness is superior.
"shithole" is much more descriptive than "Excrement Collection and Biological Degradation Concavity" or even "Geographic Entity with Severely Impaired Governance, Desperate Economic Conditions, Environmental Degradation, Hopelessness, Despair, Widespread Corruption, Disastrous Public Health Conditions (with or without the Additional Burden of Islam as a State Religion)"
Exactly.
All Trump had to do was preface with:
" . . . and pardon my vernacular here, but for lack of a suitable encompassing term 'shithole countries'" and the meager basis to be critical of his use of language would be swept away.
It is a meager basis in the first place so I don't see the point of turning it into a mountain.
There are many countries which are, for lack of a suitable encompassing technical term "shitholes." It does no one any good to deny the facts, least of all the people who are suffering powerless in those shitholes.
ADDIT: I suppose "basket-case countries" is a reasonable approximation of the same range of meanings as those conveyed by "shithole." But it isn't quite the same.