For better, and often worse, our words keep evolving
That “words have consequences” is not a new idea, but it has gathered momentum of late. Maybe a better way of looking at it is to say that words are organic. They evolve, like a living thing, and affect and are affected by the environment in which they operate. Their meaning changes with usage, and it almost seems they want to gain attention by shedding plain denotation in pursuit of more colorful connotation. Sometimes the growth is poetic – a kind of metamorphosis. Lately, however, the mutations of many words in the geopolitical sphere have become worrisome. For example, the ...
