Mean What You Say, Even if You Must Be Mean

The language we use helps us cope with the harsh realities we have trouble facing. Euphamisms obfuscate and misdirect. What happened to pain old stark speech?

George Carlin did a routine about how the relatively simple and straightforward term, "shellshock" became watered down over time to the inscrutable "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder". He argued that when it was called "shellshock" everybody know that the soldier had, over time, gone into shock by the explosions raining down around them.

Some have referred to this process as the "pussification" of our language. For those of you still paying attention, our official spoken and written language is still English.

So important are the words we choose and yet, who decides what the words mean? If I hurl the wrong expletive during the commission of a routine beating I am administering to some lout, the act has now been transformed from an old fashioned ass-wuppin' into a HATE CRIME.

George Orwell's works were rife with this theme. In his works, thought was controlled by controlling language. If there were no words to express a crime, the existence of crime would be controlled. 1984 and Animal Farm should be required reading for all.

Mean what you say, even if you have to be mean.