“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.*”

— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1735

Have you ever heard someone say something to the affect of ‘Words mean things?’  I’m reasonably sure that all of us, at some point in our lives, have heard something similar to this, but I wonder how many of us ever stopped to reflect on how important the idea behind these words actually is.  What would it be like to live in a world where we could never know the meaning of the words we used?  How would a society function if the meaning of a word could be arbitrarily changed at any given moment?  Could anyone ever feel safe or secure in such a society if the words that were thought to protect you yesterday were suddenly understood as justification for your condemnation today?  How could anything like…