Monday, February 28, 2011

WORDS MATTER/ OR DO THEY?

Usually, when we want to say something  as precisely as possible so that anyone will grasp our meaning without any ambiguity, we can find a word or series of words which will do that. Sometimes words are used, actually stolen, to mean something other than what traditional meanings are attributed to them.

As an example, you cannot say "manure is food" and be accurate but you can say "food is manure" when you actually mean the food in question tastes like one might imagine manure might taste.  Then there is the question of "gay marriage".  I always believed that all marriages were supposed to be "gay".  What is one to think when he learns that it really means a "marriage" of people of the same sex.  Aren't people of opposite sexes who marry allowed to be "gay"? I think persons who are "gay" in a sense that does not mean "merry" or "happy" should discover or invent a separate word to describe their union.   Why should those who are of the same gender, that is "gay", be allowed to be double gay when they "marry" and those of opposite gender be gay only once when they marry.  It isn't fair.

A disturbing piece of logic related to the use of the G-word is that if one group is described as "gay", the implication is that if you are not "gay" you must be "sad". But I am almost always gay but if I tell a friend I'm gay he might believe I've just "come out".  Sometimes words do matter.

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