Adjustment of type by spacing it so as to make it exactly fill a line, or of a cut so as to hold it in the right place; also, the leads, quads, etc. Example Sentences: 1 "We do not yet live in a society where the police or any other officers of the law are entitled to detain people without reasonable justification and demand their papers," Gardiner wrote. Rationalization Definition: n. The act or process of rationalizing. And then another thought: I have to work so hard because the business depends on me.
I made excuses to justify why I act the way I do. Meanwhile I felt a squirrelly feeling in my abdomen and could feel the vulnerability of not being perfect. It was subtle but definitely a felt experience.
As I thought about my own reaction, as well as the reactions I often hear from clients, I began to list the common things we say or think when hearing negative feedback to defend against new information that threatens the way we see ourselves:. A lot has been written about how to receive feedback well , some of it quite nuanced. What we need, is a simple, reliable, default response:.
When you stop defending against it externally , you actually stop defending against it internally too. The result? Passions are facts and not dogmas. I do not have a source, however I do remember reading from older usage books that considered rationalize to be so-called improper English which should be avoided. However, this Google Ngram shows that occurrences of rationalize date back to I mention this because in looking for quotes for rationalize, I noticed that speakers from earlier generations used rational in places where a modern speaker might use rationalize.
Case in point:. There is no way I would rewrite Jefferson, but I will say that had the word rationalize been in common usage, he might have chosen it to express this idea.
At least, I think of the word rationalizing when I see this quote. Perhaps others see it differently. I can see others using justify. As a final thought, Justify can also be used in terms of defending your actions in front of an authority.
This authority doesn't have to be a ruling body—it can be your boss, meter maid, English teacher, or your spouse. These definitions of rationalize from Merriam-Webster are relevant:. Of these, only the Cambridge lacks the clear implication that the act or behavior being rationalized is at least apparently inappropriate though it hints at the implication by using "try".
Justify , on the other hand carries no such implication. For instance, the company bookkeeper might ask me to justify some expenses on my expense account, by providing receipts, explaining the reason for travel, etc. There is no implication in such a request that the expenses are not valid.
Meaning "declare to be innocent or blameless". Of circumstances, "to afford justification,". According to the etymologies one means to make right, the other means to give reason. But modern usage is much more subtle than that. It doesn't have to be for you, or someone else, but can also be used to explain a curfew, a decision to cut government education spending, or the taxing of alcohol.
You can justify your decisions, thoughts and actions. You can justify these things also for other people. You can also justify "things", such as permanent daylight savings time. Rationalise means also to give a good reason. Giving a good reason is closely tied to defending it, which is why they are interchangable in many cases, and the reason why their nuances are subtle. Rationalise more often means to give a good reason to your own conscience.
However remember that these are not exclusive. Confer the following:. Neither of these are wrong, whether you want to defend the purchase in your own psyche or to somebody else. However "justify" has an extra semantic tinge that you are giving good reason and defending something to somebody else.
As said before, rationalise more often means to give good reasons to oneself, as opposed to "justify", in which he may have to defend his actions before his troops, or his superiors. But notice, the rule isn't black and white, as shown by the following sentences:. Again, obviously neither of the above are wrong, but the more appropriate is "justify" because he's defending his actions in front of others.
But neither are wrong, as "rationalise" can mean to give good reasons, reasons which he's giving to the jury. So, basically, if you want an easy distinction, "justify" is giving good reason and defence for one's actions to others, while "rationalise" is to give good reason and defence to one's own conscience. However the reality isn't quite as clear-cut as that, as I've shown in the sentences where both can be acceptable. Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms offers a detailed and thoughtful discussion of the two words as they were then used.
The first interesting thing about the dictionary's handling of the two words is that it divides its coverage of justify into three discrete parts. Justify, warrant are here compared as meaning to afford as evidence, a circumstance, a situation, a state of affairs, or the like, good grounds for doing, saying, using, or believing something. Justify implies the provision of grounds so good that they satisfy one's reason and, often, one's conscience, especially if there is a conflict between what seems necessary and what is morally right; as "He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies " Kipling ; "no consideration on earth justifies a parent in telling lies to his child" B.
A second part considers the meaning of justify in contradistinction to maintain , assert , defend , and vindicate :. Maintain, assert, defend, vindicate, justify come into comparison when they mean to uphold as true, right, just, valid, or worthy of notice or acceptance in the face of opposition or indifference.
Justify as here compared implies that the thing concerned can no longer be opposed or ignored, because it has conclusively been shown to be true, valid, proper, or the like, by irrefutable arguments, or on inescapable grounds, such as its consequence, its successful operation, or the like. And a third part which most closely concerns the poster's question addresses justify as a synonym of explain , account for , and rationalize :. Explain, account for, justify, rationalize are synonyms when they mean to give or tell the cause, reason, nature, or significance of something obscure or questionable.
One justifies oneself or another when one explains certain acts or behavior in an attempt to free oneself or another from blame. It may or may not imply consciousness of guilt or a definite accusation. One rationalizes that which is or seems to be contrary to reason when one attempts an explanation that is in accord with scientific principles or with reality as known to the senses; as, to rationalize the Greek myths; to rationalize the Genesis story of creation. In very modern use, rationalize often comes very close to justify without, however, so strong an implication of blame and with the added implication of self-deception and, at times, of hypocrisy "In other countries the plutocracy has often produced men of reflective and analytic habit, eager to rationalize its instincts" Mencken.
The most striking thing about this last excerpt is its suggestion that rationalize had only recently as of begun to be used in a way that created a strong overlap with justify.
Still, Webster's takes the view that one more frequently justifies in response to criticism or blame, while one more often rationalizes when one is deluded or hypocritical. A further development in the sense of rationalize appears in S. Hayakawa, Choose the Right Word in a discussion of the noun form rationalization in comparison with lie , falsehood , fib , prevarication , and untruth :.
These words refer to statements or formulations that are misleading or contrary to fact. By contrast, rationalization is very specific, indicating a thought process by which one attempts to justify one's actions, either to oneself or to others, by consciously or unconsciously distorting the truth. Although psychologists may view all formulated explanations as rationalizations , the word has become a fad word for ingenious but specious reasoning that puts one's own behavior in the most favorable light possible: The psychiatrist works to get behind the web of rationalizations to the real conflicts and anxieties they conceal; his rationalization that being late for work was a forgivable foible, considering how indispensable he was to the office; Nazis whose rationalization was that they were only following orders.
It appears that use of justify in the sense of "attempt to excuse from blame or to render respectable" has been around for a long time. The implication that it comes in response to criticism or disapproval is very strong, as the Webster's discussion points out; but as a means of making an excuse, it need not rely on an elaborate or rigorous logic.
In contrast, rationalize is a relative latecomer to the scene and had as its original meaning "attempt to reconcile a nonrational claim with reason or scientific knowledge.
Because the persuasiveness of the argument is central to the effort to rationalize, a person offering this type of assertion may be more susceptible to self-delusion or on the other hand more guilty of a cynical disregard for truth. Consistent with these distinctions, asserting that "might makes right" may justify exploitative treatment of the weak by the strong, but it does not rationalize such treatment.
Several good answers here similarly corroborate: To put simply, justify is to validate establish and rationalize is a means to explain trying to establish. In common usage they will be interchangeable, but justification is associated more formally with logic while rationalize is associated with human behaviour.
With Easter being upon us Easter Sunday is on April 1 this year , perhaps we do well to consider what the Christian religion has to say about justification. Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him.
In context, Jesus had just told the story of a man guilty of embezzlement. He was on the verge of being fired let go, sacked, terminated , so in an effort to save his job he very craftily went to his employer's debtors, and regardless of much they owed his employer, he would allow them to settle their accounts on the spot at a discount.
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