I blame my parents. It is largely their fault that I’ve come to love words, their sound, their use. I blame my parents for my love of puns, causing pain in the mind of my hearers. My parents are to blame.

My mother taught school and had the much harder work of trying to raise three sons. (You’ll be glad to know she turned out OK.) My father was an engineer who built houses and made harpsichords as hobbies.

If one of us kids didn’t know a word, we were told “There’s the dictionary; go look it up!”

“But I don’t know how it’s spelled. How can I look it up?”

“Sound it out. You’ll find it.”

I couldn’t get in trouble with my nose buried in a dictionary. I think I probably learned three new words for every one I looked up.

One of the five of us, I don’t remember who, came up with sesquipedalian. I’m guessing it was my oldest brother. He then said “I’m antisesquipedalian.”

Sesquipedalian means “a word a foot and a half long.” It means “a very long word with many syllables.” It also means “A person who uses a very long word.” It’s ambiguous.

When my brother said he was antisesquipedalian, he was using a very long, multi-syllabic word to say he was against using long, multi-syllabic words. He must have been in junior high at the time.

Most words are ambiguous. “Cool” is something I’ve never been, unless you mean “not warm.” Cool is ambiguous.

“Democracy” is a word being thrown around a lot by many people. It’s ambiguous; it has many meanings. My definition of democracy may be different from yours. Until we each figure out what we mean when we use the word, we’ll have difficulty understanding each other.

Here’s the thing: words are evocative. They have the power to evoke a response. Often the response is emotional. Often, in our country, the response is polar, dark or light, this or that, right or wrong (and I define each term my way.) There’s no middle ground. No “and,” only “or.” No gray. No place for compromise.

I say “deep state” and some people immediately react. It’s a pejorative term (go find your dictionary.) But what does “deep state” mean? I’ve never found a definition that is, well, definitive. All I’ve heard and read is a vague mishmash of “them” and “bureaucrats” and “civil servants who work behind the scenes.”

That’s the deep state? Really? And it is calling the shots? If that’s the case, they’re not doing it very well. It’s something of a miracle that anything gets done in government, be it city, state or national — or the neighborhood home owner’s association. “Deep state?” I think it’s a myth, a way to create an enemy where there is none.

Words, Hitler demonstrated with awful consequence, can be used to generate all sorts of responses, their ambiguity empowering them to do the speaker’s will. That’s the definition of propaganda: using language to promote a cause. Lies? Truth? Made up? Verifiable? Doesn’t matter if it serves the cause, promotes an agenda.

We’ve heard a lot of propaganda over the last decade. We all need to use our dictionaries. We all need to ask more questions of the people spewing the words. We need to press leaders to define their terms, to quit using cliches, to, as one anonymous person put it, “Shut up and talk!” or “Quit blathering and say what you mean.”

Words are interesting. They are ambiguous. They have power. They can lead us to hurt and destroy. They can divide us.

Words are interesting and ambiguous and powerful. They can heal, unite and build up, and lead us to to do the same.