Saturday, November 29, 2014

The World of Language Spin

SEE HERE The challenge of discourse in our modern age has been made immeasurably more difficult by the word spin artists, who hijack perfectly good words to twist the public consciousness to a political agenda.  It's an old idea and has always worked rather well whether for Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass or for Adolph Hitler in the third Reich, or the race baiters in Ferguson who anointed Michael Brown as the gentle giant in the face of a video showing him robbing a convenience store.  Here's Humpty's, another gentle giant's take on it.  I think he nails it!

'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'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.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

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