What are words?

So, just what are words? According to my Concise Oxford Dictionary, a word is defined as follows: "a single, distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used to form sentences with others"

A philosopher might characterize a word as a token of language with an assigned meaning. As such, a word bears with it an enormous weight of concepts and notions - some clear and simple; others subtle and shaded in a myriad of ways. Without words, there can be no discourse, and without meaning ascribed to those words, no meaningful discourse can take place.

Are words immutable in their meaning? No. Especially not in English - a language often referred to as the 'Bastard Language of Europe'. Words come and go; their meanings shift and change with the subtleties of time.

The past century has seen numerous words emerge in our lexicon; and still more change their meanings. The computer industry alone has sprouted its own vernacular that is bewildering to behold. The tokens we apply to something have changed - the 'horseless carriage' became the 'automobile'; the 'automobile' morphed yet again and became a 'car' in our day to day conversation. Yet, if someone talked to you today about their 'horseless carriage', you'd wonder if you'd stepped back in time.

Words have a way of changing over time, both the spellings and their meanings.

In the United States, the last 20 years has seen the term 'Liberal' become a rather nasty epithet. Where it once referred to someone of 'centrist' political leanings, various conservative commentators have twisted the term so that it now refers to someone who is indecisive; imprecise or unwilling to take a hard, absolute line.

Similarly, the term conservative is slowly being hijacked by the so-called "social conservatives".

People like Ted Byfield, a columnist whose rantings appear regularly in the Sun Newspapers across Canada.

I was reading his column today with some interest (and surprisingly, I didn't just get downright furious with the man - unusual). It dawned on me as I read his words that this man isn't just a "Conservative" - he doesn't want to "conserve" anything - he wants to go back in time.

Lessee - just a quick review of his column, and he touches on every social whinge button in the last thirty odd years:

• No fault divorce
• Polygamy
• Gay Marriage
• Unelected judiciary

I won't go into some of what Mr. Byfield has written on subjects such as feminism, equality rights etc. Suffice it to say that if Mr. Byfield had his way, we'd be living in some kind of wierd Bush-McArthy utopia. We'd all go to church every Sunday like good little robots; turn in the queer at the end of the block to the police. Oh yes, I imagine wife beating would come back too - after all, a man's got to keep control over his family - otherwise, it might gosh - fall apart into the rack and ruin of divorce.

Mr. Byfield makes a classical error in his logic:

It apparently hasn't yet dawned on him that "demos" means the people, and therefore rule by unelected judges is not a democracy at all.

Last I looked, the Constitution of this country was assembled by the then elected officials of our country - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Peter Lougheed, Rene Levesque and a cast of others whose names escape me at the moment.

So far, every time the judges of the Supreme Court have ruled in a manner that the "Conservatives" like Mr. Byfield dislike, they howl about an "unelected, activist judiciary". I strongly suggest that Mr. Byfield go back and read - carefully - the clauses and words of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of this nation. Then, perhaps, if their minds don't fog over with the subtle meanings of those tokens of speech, they may begin to achieve a glimmer of understanding as to what the judges derive their interpretation from.

From that point on, the Christian concept of marriage lost the support of Canadian law, and such bizarre asininities as gay marriage became inevitable. So prophesied the doomsayers at the time, and they have proved right.

I hate to point this out, but to assume a relationship between no fault divorce and gay marriage is like assuming that the temperature of spit on a rock in Alberta has something to do with the price of yak's milk in Mongolia. The two topics are unrelated - and I would suggest that you would be hard pressed to find any relationship. Of course, the so-called "social conservatives" (Moral Impositors?) assume that it is all part of society going to rack and ruin because it speaks to deviation from their "Truth"(tm)

Bills can be passed and become laws, it's true, but those same laws can also be repealed.

The corollary to this, is that illegal legislation can also be repealed. Think carefully on this, Mr. Byfield.

However, getting back to my original point about this business - it used to be that the term 'Conservative' referred to someone who would "stay the course" and not change too many things. It referred to politicians whose ideals were moderated by the realities of economics.

Today, people like Byfield and Ezra Levant scream from their soap boxes - hollering about the "injustices" done to their beliefs at the hands of the awful "Liberal" media. (Both being media writers, one can only imagine what they must think of themselves...). The term "Conservative" today has been hijacked by the religious reich, with an eye to returning this world to some state of mythical grace that they think we passed through. (Lately, the fashion du jour seems to be an idealized 1950's "nuclear family" model, with a smattering of Bush "olde tyme religion(tm)" and a healthy dose of McArthy era paranoia (with "commies" replaced by "terrorists"). Add to that a blind assumption that there is some inherent "correctness" to their particular brand of religion, and you have an environment that is really rather nasty. One which would return us to an era where being different gets the tar kicked out of you because someone decides they don't like the way you look/walk/talk whatever. Ugh!