Wilson: How do you know that, Mr. Chairman?
Ervin: Because I can understand the English language. It is my mother tongue.
Sam Ervin during Watergate hearings
I used to feel that way, that I understood the meaning of words. Lately I've been having my doubts. As a young child I was a bit behind in learning to read, and much of what I read in grade-school was dreadfully boring (see Spot run). In Jr High School I read my first novel and I was hooked.
Now I see my language, a wonderful precise tool for communication becoming as squishy as the handling on an Oldsmobile station wagon. For sure some of the blame goes to our current President. If forcing so much water into someone's lungs that they believe they will drown isn't
Torture: the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession
, than I clearly don't know what that word means.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
George Orwell
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