Beware those who use language to muddle the truth
A contranym is a word that has two contradictory meanings. Take, for example, “peruse.” It means to examine closely, as well as to look over hurriedly. “Sanction” can mean to give official approval or impose official penalty.
I find contranyms one of the more exotic aspects of our language. What makes them special is their rarity. They’re like pistachio nuts in ice cream. It’s dismaying, then — upsetting, really — that politicians, of late, are creating their own contranyms, as if English were theirs to mess with.
In some quarters, “patriot” is jarringly used to describe a participant in the January 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, D.C. “Fake” is used to describe fact. “Winner” is used to name the loser of an election. “Corruption” becomes genius. Not doing one’s job makes one a great leader. Voiding the right to vote becomes “protecting the integrity of elections.” And zillionaires avoiding taxes is part of a system in which everyone “pays their fair share.”
Huh?
It’s confusing to hear words used to express their opposites. It befuddles the brain. Messing with the language messes with the mind. It allows outsiders the most intimate access to our neural cogwheels. Newspeak, anyone?
So, what then is the plan? Confuse and abuse? Daze, then dispraise? Suppress and supplant? Muddle, then scuttle?
Hey, I’m just a citizen, what do I know? Nothing more than what the media tells me. Unless I read books. Which I do. I love language. So I’m protective. It worries me that words, those heralds of thought, that alchemical, connective tissue, magically transforming mind-energy to meaning — enabling our entire civilization to exist — should be tampered with.
I understand that language evolves. But that’s bottom up, not top down. Expressions come in and out of fashion. Who uses “zooty” anymore, or “hep”? Still, there are words with fixed meanings; those we need to act as guides. Words like “truth.” “Honesty.” “Responsibility.” “Duty.” “Democracy.”
This splintering of our common language, doubtless meant to divide us, does not bode well for the United States. United we stand, divided we fall. Divide and conquer. A house divided against itself cannot stand. We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. These aphorisms, I think, are not contranyms. They are wisdom.