Earlier I complained about the way we are now using the word access. I told the story to a friend, and this started a conversation about how we have become so adept at mangling the language. For example: impact is another word we use as a verb, as in "This movie will really impact the way you think about breast implants," even though it's really a noun, as in "The meteor's point of impact was located in downtown Hollywood, and there was much rejoicing." As far as I know, the only context in which impact can be used as a verb is dentistry: "I need to have my impacted wisdom teeth removed." Meteors are not recommended as a method of removal. Hysterical is another goodie. Have you ever heard someone describe someone else as hysterical, to mean really funny? The word they want is hilarious, and someone who is hilarious might make you hysterical, but someone who is hysterical is generally not considered funny. Often they're considered dangerous. I realize that language is liquid. This means that a word's connotation (what it's colloquially used to mean) can, over time, change its denotation (what it actually says when you look it up in the dictionary). One of my favorites is the word obese, which comes from the Latin word "edere" meaning to eat. Makes sense, except that the "ob" prefix gives it the meaning "eaten" or, in other words, emaciated. But try using obese to describe a stick person (especially one of those poor deluded women who thinks she's fat unless you can actually see all of her bones), and you might be faced with both hysteria and impact. Of course, sometimes the prejudice is inherent in the word itself: while the Latin word for "right" is "dexter" (in which case, ambidextrous means "both right" rather than "either-handed") the Latin word for "left" is "sinister". It's only taken us a couple thousand years to get it through our heads that being left-handed isn't a sign of evil. We've learned to stop connecting left-handedness with sinister. There's a point to these stories, which most people miss: language is power. It's what convinces others to pass laws, to convict, to build, to change, to charge, revolt, defend, give up, bequeath, cry, hope, and commit. And while it's amusing to pick on people who use words inadequately, at the root of it is a very real danger, that we will (and do) use words to create vast worlds of disinformation, which inevitably leads to harm. If the Fundamentalist Fruitcakes were not using words to paint an utterly inaccurate picture of homsexuals, Matthew Shepherd would not have died on a fence in Wyoming. If the government of the United States had not used words to create an utterly inaccurate picture of the Indians whose land they wanted, as well of the white men who were used to take it, Leonard Peltier would not now be sitting in jail for crimes he did not commit. Unfortunately, there are many more examples of the misuse of words leading to violence and hatred than there are funny stories of how words change.