David Lehman
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Jargon is the verbal sleight of hand that makes the old hat seem newly fashionable; it gives an air of novelty and specious profundity to ideas that, if stated directly, would seem superficial, stale, frivolous, or false. The line between serious and spurious scholarship is an easy one to blur, with jargon on your side.
—David Lehman, Signs of the Times, 1991
Posted on August 9, 2002 at 6:41 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.
—David Lehman, Signs of the Times
Posted on February 15, 2002 at 6:56 AM
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