I’ve been troubled for some time about the careless use of certain words in public discourse. In some cases, it’s pure laziness about language. In other cases, words can be twisted as a deliberate obfuscation or to reframe the terms of debate.

With this feature, I intend to reclaim for the English language and civilized discourse a few of the words that have been hijacked for political and/or other nefarious purposes. I’m thinking that this will be a weekly feature to replace the old Headline Game on Wednesdays.

The word of the week is support.

Here it is in context:

Ryan Gill, operations director for Move America Forward, said he disliked the anti-war groups’ strategy and said groups like his that support the war and especially support the troops didn’t plan on adding to Wednesday’s “circus atmosphere.”

Do you support the war in Iraq?

Before you answer, ask yourself what it means to support the war. Does it mean that you are rooting for our side to win? Does it mean that you think the war was a good idea? Does it mean that you think we should keep our troops there longer? Does it mean that your tax dollars are paying for the war? Each of these meanings could be intended by “support the war” and yet we use the term like it has a uniform meaning for everyone.

I was against the war from the beginning. I am not in favor of pulling our troops out immediately. I am not in favor of leaving our troops there for a hundred years. My tax dollars most certainly are paying for the war. I would like us to be successful there. I think President Bush is not a good president. I am disappointed by those on the left who seem to gloat over failures in Iraq. I am disappointed by those on the right who use successes in Iraq to attack the patriotism of those on the left. I am in awe of the bravery of our troops and want them to succeed in their mission and come home safely.

So with all that in mind, do I support the war?

The word has a different meaning in “support the troops” as it does in “support the president’s policy” and the current administration has a huge stake in using language like “support the war” which seems to conflate the two. Let’s stop doing that.

And reading back over this post, I can see already that “war” needs to go on the Word of the Week list. Yeah, this needs to be a regular feature. We’ll see how it goes, but I’ll probably keep this going at least through the election. Things are going to get very silly, very soon. Words will be used as weapons, and we need to stay vigilant.