Words mean things, at least they should

John 18:37–38

Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”

I am continually amazed at how sloppy and squishy our language is. I have at times chalked it up to a lack of verbal skills, a lack of intelligence, or simple laziness. But I think that the depth of our cultural/societal problem goes much deeper than those excuses. I think our society has developed an appreciation of inexact language because it makes it so much easier to defend our inappropriate actions at a later date. "Well, I didn't really mean that" and "what I meant to say was...." These are much easier defensive stances when our original language was so squishy that it could have meant many different things.

Perhaps the postmodern mindset with its rejection of definitions has contributed to the problem. But even those who strongly reject the postmodern paradigm use this same squishy language.

I recently ran across a quote that speaks to this situation very well:

The English language ... becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Sad, but true.