PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I like words.  More than charts and graphs.  More than numbers.

So it is that I mourn the loss of the original meaning of some words in a society marked today by over-reliance on the Internet, which enables the definitions of some words to change – and not necessarily for the better.

Consider these three examples:

• Gay:  Means being a homosexual person, not just someone who is happy.

• Woke:  Means being alert to injustice in society, especially racism, not just someone who awakens from sleep.

• Pride:  Means being a person who displays confidence and self-respect as expressed by members of a group, typically one that has been socially marginalized, on the basis of their shared identity, culture, and experience.”  Think pride about being gay.  Not just someone who takes pride, for instance, in the general values of the U.S,

So, it is no longer okay to utter this sentence: 

I woke up today feeling pride in my country, which made me look forward to a gay day.

Today, that would mean that I am a homosexual, filled with pride about being so identified, and intending to be alert for racial justice.

So, the message is:  Be careful how use these words today.

No less a vaunted journalistic source than the Washington Post showed up recently with a story on this subject, though the content tended to focus on changes prodded by technology, not by politics, as in the cases I cited above.

“Technological change,” the Post story said, “tends to provoke linguistic and cultural change.  It’s the reason why, several times a year, dictionaries trumpet the addition of new and typically very trendy words.

“But more interesting than the new words, I think, are the old words that have gotten new meanings:  Words such as “cloud” and “tablet” and “catfish,” with very long pre-Internet histories.  The re-appropriation is rarely random; in most cases, the original meaning of the word is a metaphor for the new one.  Our data is as remote as a cloud, for instance; catfish are just as tricky and unpredictable as an online love interest.”

I won’t bore you with a copy of the words the Post lists as having changed, especially through technology. 

But the point is the same.  The meanings of words change. 

For me, gay, woke, and pride are the best examples.

The fix?  Just don’t use the words in everyday language to avoid misunderstanding and misconception, even as you mourn the passing of the old definitions.