Personal essays
Getting tangled up in technicalities
Shifting meaning
We may have lost the battle for meaning when the dictionary redefined “literally” to also mean not literally.
Literally, the word literally didn’t mean literally. At least not all the time.
“What’s the big deal,” friends asked, “we used to say something was ‘bad’ when we meant it was good.”
That was slang. Even in the dictionary there are several definitions of “bad” that mean what we think it means before we are told that informally, mainly in North America, it can mean good or excellent.
And that’s how the pavement shifts under our feet.
The very people who hate when a committee chairman is now called a chairperson or a chair, embrace the Gulf of Mexico being renamed to the Gulf of America after five hundred years.
I literally don’t care what we call that body of water.
“Daniel,” you ask, “what do you mean by literally?”
Exactly.
Is
During Trump’s first administration I was at breakfast with a friend who was still angry about Clinton. He was less concerned with what Clinton had done than the fact that he had lied about it.
I was baffled. Then of course, I argued, you’re bothered by Trump’s daily demonstrable lies.
My friend insisted that that’s different.
I suppose that is now literally true.
So what was Clinton’s lie?
It’s been more than twenty-five years since President Clinton famously said in front of the grand jury, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
I was a Clinton supporter and even I had issues with this.
How do we not know what “is” means?
Clinton was trying to argue that his statement that “there’s nothing going on between us” depended on whether “is” meant “at the moment” or “now or ever in the past”.
He wasn’t denying the affair - at least not any more - but trying to deny that he had lied about it because when he said “is” he meant “currently.”
Clinton wasn’t telling the truth but you could see how he wasn’t telling a lie either.
Technically. Depending on what your definition of “is” is.
At the end of the day
Last week I had coffee with friends and told them that one week I’ll send out a newsletter where the entire essay is: “WTF.”
This week was almost that week.
I’ve often repeated my mantra that if it bothers you when their side does it, it should bother you when your side does it and if it doesn’t bother you when your side does it, it shouldn’t bother you when their side does it.
I mean this for whatever “it” is.
Using a technical definition of what “is” is was something that made me uncomfortable and incensed their side.
And yet, they are currently using technical definitions in the worst ways.
I’ll give you two examples.
First, you’ve no doubt followed the story about the man who was mistakenly arrested and sent to a prison in El Salvador. The case went up to the Supreme Court which ruled that the administration must facilitate the return of the man.
But what does “facilitate” mean? Technically, it means that you are making an action easier. It doesn’t mean that you are actually performing the action.
It felt as if the intent of the ruling is to right a wrong and bring the guy back. But who even knows what “is” means.
Second, and this one is clever, what do we mean by “fourteen days?”
That seems obvious. We all know what a day means. (Don’t we?)
A day is 24 hours.
Except a work day might be eight hours.
And I often order something that will arrive in three to five business days which excludes weekends and holidays.
But we all know what a day means. (Don’t we?)
When the US Senate passes certain types of measures - such as restricting the president’s power to do things a president is not supposed to do - the US Congress has fourteen days to take up that measure.
(I think it’s fourteen - the exact number is not the point of this exercise.)
The US House of Representatives just passed a rule that, for the purpose of these types of procedural requirements, the remainder of this year will be considered to be a single day.
The next eight months will be considered by the House of Representatives to be one day.
Literally. Like the old meaning of literally when it meant literally.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 267. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe