Words matter for what they represent.
When Lincoln described a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” it magnificently defined what our nation is all about.
Words matter to authoritarian governments, too. To control their people, they must also manipulate how they speak. That was the motif of Orwell’s novel “1984,” in which a dictatorship redefines “war” as “peace” and “ignorance” as “strength.”
