I graduated from high school in May of 1978, ready to transition to college life at Mizzou and study my chosen profession of journalism. I was prepared to move on from my job as the custodial engineer at the Gasconade County Republican.
I had been cleaning the commode, emptying trash and sweeping floors for over eight years, starting at 75 cents an hour. I specifically remember my grandmother Thelma Warden — who still worked at the office — showing me how to clean a toilet.
Upon receiving my high school diploma, the employees at the Republican presented me with one of my most valuable gifts, one I still possess — a dictionary. Specifically, the gift was a Webster’s New World Dictionary; Second College Edition printed on India paper with index or thumb notches.
Weighing in at 10 lbs., this hardcover dictionary is 1692 pages containing 160,000 entries.
As the official desk dictionary of the Associated Press, the reason for this wonderful gift was my difficulty in spelling words. In high school, I excelled in math and science classes, English was my weakest subject.
Dictionaries have an essential task, more than, as in my case, providing the correct spelling; they are the arbiters of language. Without the definition of words, as laid down in dictionaries, the written and spoken language would become gibberish.
When society gives up language control to those in power, they lose their freedom. That is the case in North Korea. Yeonmi Park, who escaped North Korea when she was 13, relates how the Kim Communist Regime in North Korea controls what everyone reads, watches or listens to, as well as the language.
Forbidden words in North Korea include love, oppression, liberty, gay and compassion. Park explains that “who controls the language controls the thoughts.” Because of this, North Koreans don’t know the concept of freedom or human rights.
Park now lives in the United States. She is grateful to have found acceptance and justice in the United States: “This is the only country that I did not face racism. This is the only country I’m accepted as who I am.”
You don’t have to look hard to discover where the left is changing how we can speak and think in America.
In 2020 many in the mainstream media described the riots around the country where businesses were destroyed, stores looted, fires set and citizens killed by domestic terrorists as “peaceful protests.”
Facilitating this damage were leftist radicals, including Antifa. Protecting them were Democrats.
Last year as the Biden Administration pushed its Build Back Better legislation, it redefined the word “infrastructure.”
My 1970s Webster Dictionary defines it as “installations and facilities on which the continuance and growth of a community, state, etc. depend.” Most rational people understand infrastructure as roads and bridges. Last year Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., tweeted: “Paid leave is infrastructure. Child care is infrastructure. Caregiving is infrastructure.”
The far left has pressured the NCAA to change the definition of what constitutes a woman in sports.
Illegal aliens are now undocumented migrants.
The power of the far left mob has infiltrated the dictionary itself. In July, Justthenews.com reported that The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has changed the definitions for “female,” “male,” “they,” “boy,” and “girl” to fit with gender identity ideology. For “male” and “female,” listed definitions include “having a gender identity that is the opposite of female” and “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male,” respectively.
For “they,” one of the definitions is “a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped defining people who are pregnant as women. They are just pregnant people.
The new term for a pedophile — someone sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children — is now “minor-attracted people.”
Now that we are in a recession, defined as two-quarters of negative GDP, the Biden Administration wants to change its meaning. After all, we can’t have negative news while a Democrat is in the White House. For those who agree with the President — that we are not in a recession — ask a local business owner their opinion.
The control over how we think and speak in America is well underway. If you use the “wrong” word(s) on Twitter, you are suspended.
Don’t let the radical left control you.
To see Park’s amazing story visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RrdxIqDmTA
