The Meaning of Words

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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
Through the Looking Glass- Lewis Carroll


Recipe for establishing a strong political movement

We blame some fellow human beings (bad people) for all of our troubles, so it helps if these “bad people” can be easily identified. Historically, we have used color or ethnicity as identifying markers, but increasing integration has made it more difficult to identify the “bad people”. One way we now attempt to identify them is by labeling them with an identifying word and conditioning their followers to believing the word is bad. The true meaning of the word is of no consequence as long as the context makes it clear that the word is truly bad.

For example, a strong political movement in this country owes its strength to this tactic. Consider the list of their bad words:

LIBERAL: The context has changed over time. At one time, “bleeding heart liberal” was an invective. They dropped bleeding heart when it identified a liberal as “compassionate.”
More recently, a President referred to liberal as the “L” word in the same way we demonize words by refusing to say them and refer to them by their first letter. Thus, the “L” word now joins the “F”, “N”, and “S” words as unspeakable.
What does it mean to call someone a liberal? My Standard English Thesaurus says we are accusing them of being open minded, broadminded, noninterventionist, freethinking, laissez-faire, generous, copious, abundant, profuse, substantial, large, tolerant, forward thinking, non-judgmental, charitable, understanding, and, yes, even compassionate.

ELITIST: This could be defined as, exclusive, discriminatory, superior, better, better-quality, improved, enhanced, a cut above, excellent, high-class, top-quality, exclusive, first-class, best quality, or expert. According to Sarah Palin, an elitist is someone who thinks they are better than everyone else. It is unlikely that she would label herself an elitist. Therefore, logic requires us to conclude that Sarah Palin believes she is no better than Obama!

INTELLECTUAL: The people who consider this a bad word are those to whom this word could not possibly apply.

ARAB: This word is so bad that even McCain felt obligated to defend his opponent when one of his supporters accused Obama of being an Arab. He was inspired to say: “Obama is a decent person”. Does this mean that McCain believes Arabs to be indecent? If so, I have a perfectly good English word to describe McCain.

SOCIALIST: This word is the ultimate insult! It is even worse than liberal. Who are these terrible socialists, the ones who want to spread the wealth around? Before criticizing someone for being a socialist, one should take measure of his or her own socialistic tendencies. For that purpose, we have devised a test.

DICK