Our Language is A-Changin’, Whether We Like it or Not

Not all that long ago, comedian George Carlin used to build his routines around observations of our society and its tendency to transform our language in odd twists and turns. He would talk about how some very plain-spoken approaches to things in our world became unusable in polite discussions and how people demanded they be replaced with something softer and less offensive. So “false teeth” became “dental appliances,” “the dump” became a “landfill” and “constipation” became “occasional irregula