The Importance of Words

From Eye on the Media: Just like Stalingrad, Bret Stephens, Jerusalem Post, 5-28-04

"CARE FOR language is more than a concern for purity. When one describes President Bush as a fascist, what words remain for real fascists? When one describes Fallujah as Stalingrad-like, how can we express, in the words that remain to the language, what Stalingrad was like? And while I'm at it, when we call Shimon Peres or Yossi Beilin or now Ariel Sharon a "traitor," how much more invisible do actual traitors become?

George Orwell wrote that 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." In taking care with language, we take care of ourselves."

While Bret Stephens uses examples of hyperbole, the same thing can be said about understatement. The best known and most recent example of the media, including The Washington Post, dumbing down the English language is its refusal to call a terrorist a terrorist. Calling a terrorist merely an "activist" or a "militant" is not only dishonest, but it carries more far reaching dangers. None of those substitute words adequately describe what distinguishes a terrorist from all the other activists and militants who do not and would not sink so low as to deliberately attack and kill innocent civilians for political ends. Eliminating the word that captures the moral distinction threatens to eliminate the moral distinction itself from the minds of those speaking the language. If we had to rely on the media for the preservation of our language, we'd be in trouble. Words are important.