For those of you who are not inclined to pay close attention to sports headlines, the Super Bowl is this Sunday. It is the 50th Super Bowl to be played, and will find the Carolina Panthers facing the Denver Broncos in Santa Clara, California. Even if you care nothing for the game of football, it promises to be an event worth watching.
It's no secret that the stock market has been pretty crummy in 2016. My younger sister Allegra is in college, without much of a vested interest in these things yet, and I just texted her to ask what the stock market has done this year. Her verbatim response was: "I think it's been kinda all over the place? And it tanked recently? Oil prices or something."
"But language is a treacherous thing, a most unsure vehicle."
Mark Twain said that, and I can't disagree with him. Mastering the technical, dictionary definitions of words is good, but will only get you part way to communicating fully. That's because words don't always stick to their technical, dictionary definitions. They reshape themselves, sometimes drastically, based on the countless different contexts in which they find themselves written or read, spoken or heard.