"Liberal" is to most Americans a term implying praise, so far
as it goes; to Cardinal Newman it implied what were to him the
irreverent and dangerous heresies of free thought, and therefore in his
mouth it was a word of condemnation.[50] "Aesthetic" to many good people
has an implication of effeminacy and of trifling which is far from
praiseworthy; to artists and critics it may sum up what is most
admirable in civilization. If in an argument on abolishing football as
an intercollegiate sport you describe a certain game as played "with
spirit and fierceness," football players would think of it as a good
game, but opponents of football would hold that such a description
justified them in classing the game with prize fighting. When one of the
terms you use may thus stir one part of your audience in one way, and
the other part in just the opposite way, you are dealing with an
uncomfortable kind of ambiguity.
It is easy to get into the way of thinking that the denotation of a
word--the things which it names--is the only part of its meaning that
counts; but with many words the connotation--I use the word in the
rhetorical rather than in the logical sense, to include its
implications, associations, and general emotional coloring--has more
effect on human nature.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236