I am alternatively amused and fascinated by the different meanings we imbue on a word. God knows that I love and make frequent use of my share of obscenities and profanities.
"I had heard that word at least ten times a day from my old man. He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; a master."
Someday, perhaps the spawn will speak so lovingly and eloquently of me.
I honestly think I could make some sailors blush if given the opportunity and I managed to snag the spouse largely as a result of my salty tongue, but I digress. Word meanings—isn't it crazy how we decide that "fuck" is a bad word and that "flock" is not. They are merely letters and sounds put together that we put our meaning on.
Then there are those words that mean different things in different places. One favorite of mine is shag. Here in the good 'ole U.S of A it is a rip, roaring dance made popular on the beaches of the southern states back in the 1950s and 60s. But you cross the pond to our intrepid neighbors in the English language and shag is a less than romantic form of copulation. You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe . . . that sort of thing, you know?
So I am intrigued by the hullaballoo that the Right has made about President Obama's lack of the use of the word terror. Does it matter what we call it when someone decides that their ideas and opinions are more valuable than the lives of other innocent human beings? Or does the fact that those human beings don't hold those same values or opinions dear, make them somehow guilty? I guess in the eyes of those terrorists or bombers or extremists, those who aren't with them are against them. Gosh, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?
In the end, terror is just a word that tries to contain the horror of one person or one's group decision to cause harm, unexpectedly and without warning, to another person or group. It is the action and meaning behind the word that we need to focus on, not the word itself.
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