In light of the soon to be barrage of news reports on today’s election results, I thought I would write a little post about words. It is a title and topic that came to mind a while back, but I had not quite decided what to say.
In considering the past 18 months of campaigning by our two party leaders it is an interesting matter – how words are used. The United States is heavily divided along party lines because of the misuse and abuse of words by both candidates.
Trump abuses words, women, immigrants and the like regularly, which seems to appeal to a number of people who would equally want the U.S. to be better than it already is.
Clinton misuses words with her email scandal, politicking, and the like, which seems to not faze most people when faced with the alternative in wanting the U.S. to be better than it already is.
Either way, the media is absolutely warping the words of both candidates to exacerbate a story depending on the networks’ political bent. It is events like this that causes historical shifts in the way that words are used and understood in the future. Society places meaning upon words that are benign on their own, but get infused with either negative or positive connotations and nuances. What is forgotten amidst it all is the commonality that we all want the U.S. (or read human beings) to be better than it (they) already is (are).
The beauty of language is that it is indeed alive – new creations come about regularly and shifts in use ebb and flow as frequently as the tide changes. However, as a lover of words and language, I feel a need to remember that at the end of the day, words are just words. Instead of blaming how someone spells a word or misuses or abuses a word, let us put the onus where it belongs. The intention of the user and the user him or herself.
Let’s remind ourselves that at the end of the day we all want the same thing – a better world to live in. There are no other words to describe that. đŸ™‚
~T đŸ˜€
