As societies grow decadent

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

Gore Vidal

 

I read through this essay every few years.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

More at link.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

 

Fetus substitued for Baby.

 

Much like questions such as "Why do you hate the poor?" or "Why do you refuse to help the poor?"

 

I think words are used to mark a certain period in history or to mark a point in society where certain terms are deemed fashionable by urban standards or made formal/classical through academic pursuits. Words also contain our identity and the use of it can transform our perception of gender, race or class like using different pronouns with regards to transgendered people or using politically correct terms when referring to Chinese-Americans or Chinese or 'Black people' with African-American or American in itself. Words do not complicate, they illuminate.