‘…I get the feeling I “evacuated” 30,000 Jews already by shooting them, at Riga. Is what I did “evacuation”? When they fell, were they “evacuated”? There are another 20,000, at least, awaiting similar “evacuation”. I just think it is helpful to know what words mean, with all respect…’ — Rudolph Lange as portrayed by Barnaby Kay in the 2001 film Conspiracy
Words have meaning. The meaning of the words we use sometime change. Sometimes the change is so gradual as to be nigh imperceptible, other times as in the introductory quotation given above, very bad ideas can be couched in language that on an emotionally dishonest level makes them palatable to those less fluent in new-speak.
The film — starring Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci — is a speculative dramatization of the infamous Wannsee Conference held in January 1942 by the elite fifteen of the Nazi Reich at a sumptuous villa. Already a war that would by its conclusion overtake up to 70 million men was being fought from the gates of Moscow, to the jungles of the pacific, and the ancient deserts of Egypt. Yet, in these circumstances worse was yet to come as all of nazi-dom was was brought to bear on the ‘Jewish Question’.
In this depiction there is much to think about, but not least for me is how words are deserving of respect.
How do we respect words?
- Don’t overuse them. Like the boy-who-cried-wolf, a word used too often ceases to be heard.
- Know your audience. Words do not mean the same things to all people. Understand the word as the person you are speaking to does, otherwise you will never be understood.
- Words deserve to be understood in context. It is at best ignorant and at worst deceptive to use globally negative words to describe local situations where they may or may not be appropriate.
