Over time, words take on new connotations at first, and then eventually entirely new denotations. This is not only the nature of language but the history of English.
Consider, for example, the use of the word “certain” in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”
At the time the Declaration was written, the term “certain” meant “fixed, settled, indisputable”, meaning the rights that Jefferson was speaking about were absolute. Today however, people are just as likely to use the word with the opposite meaning, as in: “I have certain things to do today”, meaning “unspecified” or “unknown”. The implications of these sometimes subtle differences can be enormous and the political Left has used this as a tool for many years.
Consider the Left’s view that the term…
