Devolving Meanings

One evening at dinner when my children were younger they asked my wife and I if we could see a certain movie that weekend. Knowing the pitfalls of scheduling I said, "We’ll see." And they broke out rejoicing!

I asked them why they thought we’d go when I told them that we’d see how the schedule works out. My son declared that every time I’d say, "We’ll see," we always went.

That was when I realized that through frequent repetition with similar results I devalued what has come to be a mantra for parents who did not want to commit to anything.

Take another example: you probably heard someone start a statement with, Honestly, or worse, To be honest with you. Nothing wrong with those, right? Well, does that mean that whatever they said before were not true, and they had been dishonest?  So the next time you hear that, say, "Please just lie to me."

One of my favorites is sophisticated, a word from the 15th century with roots from sophistry. Originally the word meant, "the process of making impure or weak, or to adulterate."

This has now become synonymous to being cultured, nuanced, knowledgeable, or, better yet,  disillusioned - THE mark of cultivation and urbanity. This gives one a sense of complexity, development and subtlety. So now, with the new meaning completely subrogating the original despicable one, who would not want to be called a sophisticate?

Have you ever heard of anyone having intellectual honesty and open-mindedness? Did you notice that intellectual honesty and open mindedness are only applicable as long as you agree with them and embrace their ideas? Anything short of that and you are a jingoist, closed minded, stubborn, or even worse, unsophisticated! Imagine that!

While handing out the Sunday newsletter to our parishioners, a lady asked for a couple, so I gave her two. And she repeated, "A couple, please." I forgot that a couple was more than two!

And how can I forget, "How are you?" Once meant as a genuine concern for our health and welfare, this phrase has become a mechanical greeting. And if you answered how you really feel at 5:30 in the morning you will catch the one who asked at a loss for what to say. Try it, you’ll have so much fun it will lift you out of your morning doldrums!

I’m sure you can think of a few gems. And I submit that I’m very guilty of the same offense.

We take words for granted - no matter what language we speak. Words have specific meanings. It is up to us to use them properly or to abuse them; to hand them down to our children as treasures that they are or throw them about as casualties of political correctness.

And one last thing. Are you seated? Good. Now, try to stand up. No, I did not say, "Stand up." I said try. But how do you try? You see, as the great Yoda once said (which I'm going mangle here), "There is no try. We either do or we don’t." We either mean it or we don’t. Did you ever have an appointment that you just have to meet? You moved mountains to clear up your schedule. You committed yourself to being there and indeed you got there.

That is called commitment. We are either Catholics, or we are not. There is no in-between.

And so, the next time you say, "How are you?" mean it, stop and listen. Don’t be surprised if you’d pick a good friend or two.

Apologetics

Mary and the Saints

Mass and the Eucharist

Prayers

Novenas

The Rosary

Archived Articles

Prayer Requests

Tours and Pilgrimages