Ideas

 

Words

You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words and words are all I have
To take your heart away

But words are important.

Words are how we communicate to each other. But as William Shakespeare said, “A rose by any name world smell as sweet.”  A word is an imperfect, but human, way of assigning a name to an idea.  End of life counseling sound benign, but death panels sounds terrible,  But both words describe the same thing.  The same is true  for Pro-choice and Abortion; charity and a handout; freedom of speech and slander.

Sometimes history accidentally displays this. Engineers refer to a difference from the ideal as tolerance.  Statisticians refer to exactly the same thing as deviation. One sounds benign, one sounds terrible, but they are the same thing.  A position should be taken on the thing, not the words used to describe that thing.