At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
William SafireRead
Stop worrying about the 'dumbing down' of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a 'race to the bottom' of the page by little minds confined to little words.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the simplification of language in modern media and social platforms.
William Safire's quote highlights concerns about the decline of language complexity and richness in contemporary communication mediums such as blogging, tweeting, and mainstream media. He implies that the speed and brevity required by these platforms often lead to a reduction in intellectual discourse, as contributors may prioritize simplicity over depth, resulting in what he perceives as a detrimental trend in how we express ourselves linguistically.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the impacts of social media on language education.
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
Never assume the obvious is true.
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.
Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.
No employment can be managed without arithmetic, no mechanical invention without geometry.
The most important thing is to make a percussive instrument a singing instrument. Teachers should stress this aspect in their instruction, but it seems that very few of them actually do.
September 11 We thought we'd outdistanced history Told our children it was nowhere near; Even when history struck Columbine, It didn't happen here. We took down the maps in the classroom, And when they were safely furled, We told the young what they wanted to hear, That they were immune from a menacing world. But history isn't a folded-up map, Or an unread textbook tome; Now we know history's a fireman's child Waiting at home alone.
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