meaning - "Polarized" or "polarizing" opinions?


English is a foreign language to me, and one word that is particularly confusing is "polarize". In physics, it has contradictory definitions; when polarizing waves you remove inequality, but polarizing can also mean to cause something to acquire polarity, or in other word emphasize inequality. When applied to opinions, however, people usually seem to have the second definition in mind.



  1. In a Huffington Post blog entry, I found the phrase "polarized opposite opinions". Is this an indication that "polarized opinions" on its own could be interpreted as "unified opinions" unless clarified? Otherwise, how should I understand the phrase?

  2. I've compared the number of search results for "polarized opinions" and "polarizing opinions", and the latter seems to be more popular. Nevertheless, to me that one seems to imply that the opinions themselves bear the responsibility of dividing people into groups, instead of blaming the people who formulate the opinions. Is that correct, or is there another distinction between "polarized" and "polarizing"?


Thanks!



Answer



Polarized opinions does not necessarily imply two opposite opinions, it implies two different opinions. While in the strictest sense, of magnetic or charge poles, the two poles will indeed be opposite, the same does not necessarily hold true of opinions. In everyday usage, the phrase polarized opinions implies that a group of people have different (usually strong) opinions on a particular subject. Yes, they do tend to be mutually exclusive but they need not be opposite as such.


As for polarized vs. polarizing, they are both correct, they just mean different things. For example, both these sentences are perfectly correct:



Abortion is a polarizing issue



and



Our society is polarized with respect to abortion



It is the same principle as and other verb, for example heating and heated.


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