There's a story that has been widely circulated in legal circles about the late Justice Edson Haines of the Ontario Supreme Court. While Haines was in private practice he represented a swimming pool company that was sued for negligence. The plaintiff had dived into the pool and struck his head on the ledge that surrounded the pool just below the water level. No one knew what this ledge was supposed to be called so Haines started to call it a safety ledge. Half way through the trial the judge began referring to it as a safety ledge and towards the end of the proceedings even the plaintiff's lawyer followed suit. In the end the jury found Haines' client not to be negligent; after all how can a company be found negligent when they went to all that trouble to install a "safety" ledge.
In the modern world where written language doesn't seem to be as important as it once was, it is fairly common to use words that mean something completely different from their plain meaning. Many examples can found in the media that just blithely repeat the misuse of words without paying any attention to what is actually being conveyed by these words.
a few weeks ago, the U.S. forces in afghanistan bombed some buildings after receiving information that Zayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command would be present. It was later determined that al Zawahiri was not where he was thought to be but other people were and died or were seriously injured in the attack. The casualties of the bombing were almost universally referred to as "civilians". The use of the word "civilians" in this context serves no other purpose than to elevate al Zawahiri and al Qaeda to the status of a legitimate military and it puts the Islamofascists into the same category as legally recognized armed forces. The use of the word "civilians" in the context of a military action also strongly implies that those who were injured and killed were innocent victims of the bombing. While some of them might have been, it has not been ruled out that those who were occupying the building were not members of al Qaeda or other terrorists. Would it so terribly difficult to just refer to those who were killed as "other people"?
Most taxpayers, especially those who work hard for their money, resent governments that spend it wastefully. No one really likes governments that do nothing except tax and spend. Not too much emphasis has been placed on taxing and spending in Canada because Canadians have been preoccupied with a government that taxes and steals. Nonetheless no government likes to be in the position of being observed to overspend. The Liberals got around this point very nicely--they refuse to say that they ever spend money--they invest.
On a pre-election episode of The Michael Coren Show, Liberal MP Ruby Dhallia went through an entire litany of what her then government was doing; they were investing in health care and investing in education and investing in this and investing in that. about the only thing that Dhallia did not tell the audience was whether or not members of her party go to Tim Horton's and invest in double doubles. Neither Coren nor any of the other panelists challenged her on these "investments" that are not really investments but expenditures.
another election word trick was the Liberal line that their government has "balanced the budget" in recent years. Paul Martin used the term "balanced budget" to mean not running a deficit. a budget that results in a surplus of billions of dollars each year is no more of a balanced budget than one that shows a deficit of the same amount. The Tories caught on but most of the media never addressed how a $9 billion surplus could possibly be a balanced budget. Martin used the term to counter the idea that Canadians are overtaxed. and he got away with it.
Words these days mean nothing more than what the writer or speaker intends them to mean. Humpty would be so proud.
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