Who's Changing the Meaning?

By Dana Lynn Pope

The definitions of words are changing and we aren't aware of it. Those who do know are using this information to their advantage. This is their tactic to train people how to act and think. They are manipulating the unsuspecting to shift their beliefs without them knowing it.

They maneuver us through three processes: Changing the definitions of words, interpreting writings from long ago using today's definitions, and Leaving out information.

How are they changing the definitions of words?
*Discrediting words like Truth to create new ways to lie so they appear to be telling the truth.
*Switching words like Right and Wrong to Appropriate and Inappropriate to get rid of right and wrong altogether.
* Creating concepts like Relativism to do away with truth and reality.

What unchangable writings are being reinterpreted?
*Important national documents like The Declaration of Independence.
*Speeches from long ago like Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.
*How our country is run by destroying the foundation we were built on.

How does leaving out information affect us?
*This information negligence allows the unsuspectings' knowledge and opinions to be formed without the benefit of all the facts.
*It creates chaos in our society and in the outcome of court cases.
*It conditions the unsuspecting until they believe things they don't agree with.
*It indoctrinates people to accept the ideologies of those creating the changed definitions.

This book takes you through the changes in definitions and how they are being applied. You will see what something meant at the time of the writing and how it's being used today. This book reveals how the knowledge, beliefs, and actions of people are being controlled by others.

The good news is an informed mind is an effective mind. The more you are aware of what is happening the less you will be deceived. We are the key to putting a stop to this. We are the ones who can take back control of our lives.

Based on a subject no one talks about!
There has never been a book on this subject!
Find out what is really happening!
Find out WHO'S CHANGING THE MEANING?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998640716

Book preview

Who’s Changing The Meaning? © 2017 Dana Lynn Pope

Published by Dana Lynn Pope, LLC

ISBN: 978-0-99864-070-9 (print)

ISBN: 978-0-99864-071-6 eBook

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Design and Photos by Kelsey Pope

Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data has been applied for.

Definitions are taken from the American Dictionary of the English Language. Foundation For American Christian Education, 2007, www.dictionary.com and www.merriam-webster.com

Scripture quotations are taken from Webster’s Bible Translation, www.biblehub.com, Webster’s Bible Translation (WBT)

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr’s I Have a Dream speech

Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY.

Copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author or the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Soli Deo Gloria

To the Glory of God Alone

Special Thanks

to those who tirelessly

keep our dictionaries up to date.

Your work is greatly appreciated.¹

Special Thanks to Bible Hub

for presenting

Webster’s Bible Translation

on your website²

---

1 American Dictionary of the English Language. Foundation For American Christian Education, 2007

www.dictionary.com and www.merriam-webster.com

2 Webster’s Bible Translation, www.biblehub.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Why The Book

Before We Get Started

The Dictionary

Noah Webster – The Author Of The First American Dictionary

The Dictionary After Noah

Dictionary Wrap-Up

Political

About The Declaration Of Independence

The Preamble To The Declaration Of Independence

More On The Preamble

The 56 Signers Of The Declaration Of Independence

The Declaration Of Independence

The Next Two Hundred Years

Abraham Lincoln’s

Gettysburg Address

I Have A Dream …

Coming To America

How The Bible Was Created

Effect On The Church

How It Affects The Church

Meek

Hate Father And Mother

Martin Luther And The Reformation

Interpretation -

Hermeneutics

Diversity – Tolerance –

Inclusive

Heterosexual -

Homosexual

Homophobe -

Homophobia

Marriage

Spiritual Wrap-Up

Truth

Lie

Half-Truth

Reality

Right/Wrong

Good/Bad

Appropriate/Inappropriate –

Acceptable/Unacceptable

Punctuation

The Apostrophe

Jokes

Let’s Take A Look

Same Word Different Meaning

Words That Changed Meaning

Which Is It!

It’s Not A Word

Interesting Information

What Did I Hear!

Do You Know What You Are Saying

What Words Can Do

Words/Phrases That Disappeared

Leaving Out Part Of The Message

New Words Needed

End Of Book

Why The Book

Words are the most powerful force available making communication an influential tool. What we say to another can brighten their day, wound them horribly, make friends or start wars. If what is said is misinterpreted by the listener the speaker’s meaning will be lost. To effectively communicate the listener has to understand the meaning of the speaker. If the listener does not grasp the speaker’s meaning then communication did not occur.

What you say to another person is misunderstood because the listener’s interpretation of the words you use is different from yours. You mean one thing, but the receiver understands it another way. Their definitions of the words you use are not the same as your definitions. How can that be when we are all speaking English and we learned the definitions of our words in school?

Communication is the interchange of words. The purpose is to share knowledge, opinions, facts, and unfortunately, even gossip. The value of communication is only as good as how the receiver understands what the speaker is saying. Otherwise, there is no communication.

Take for instance Amelia Bedelia. Growing up, these children’s books were some of my favorites. Peggy Parish wrote a series of young readers about this quirky character. Amelia Bedelia was a housekeeper for the Rogers family and she was always getting things wrong. Amelia did what she was told to do. The result was never what the Rogers family wanted, yet if you look at what Amelia did it was exactly what Mrs. Rogers said.

When Mrs. Rogers asks Amelia to draw the drapes, she is asking Amelia to close the drapes. Amelia proceeds to draw a picture of the drapes, which is exactly what she was told to do. The listener misinterpreted the meaning the communicator wanted. Therefore the communication did not work.

Another example would be the building of the Tower of Babel. The descendants of Noah survived the flood and began searching for a home. They found an area in Shinar and chose to settle there. Being full of themselves, they decided to build a tower so tall it would reach heaven. They were seeking to reign over all people and control their own actions. They were trying to break away from God.

At that time, there was unity and everyone spoke the same language. The universal language gave them the ability to work and live together. God knew what their real intention was so he made each person speak in a different language. The confusion made it difficult to work together to build the tower. They had so much trouble communicating that the people decided to separate and go different ways. The tower was never completed.

Having a common language helps us to work together effectively. You can imagine how important that would be in the military or in the medical field. The military has its own language in order to work as a unit. The officers teach exactly what they mean when they speak until it is ingrained in the soldiers. When the commanding officer gives orders, especially during a battle, the soldiers do not have to think twice about what the officer said. They know the exact meaning of each word the officer commands. They are able to respond quickly and effectively to achieve victory.

The same thing happens in the medical field where having a common language is vital. In an emergency room, many people surround the patient and seconds could mean a person’s life. Each caregiver does their job in a fluid process. As the doctor states what he wants done, the nurses and technicians are able to react quickly. There is no need to ask for clarification since each person knows exactly what the doctor means. This quick process has saved thousands of lives.

We interact with each other by communicating visually, auditorily and verbally. The communication is successful if the listener understands the speaker’s meaning. The problem of correctly interpreting the meaning can cause negative issues. The words spoken can be perceived as encouraging or insulting. A look can be seen as an invitation or a lack of interest. How the recipient interprets the dialogue or the signs determines his understanding of the message. The listener has the meaning of what he heard which may or may not be the same as the speaker intended. Yet it is the speaker who is trying to communicate a message.

Many books teach how to interpret someone’s body language. I will leave that to those writers. What I want to tackle is how verbal communication may or may not be effective. We will look at what is happening to words making it difficult to communicate. In particular, we will see how the definitions of words are changing. We will also look at what happens when we interpret the meaning of writings using today’s definitions instead of those in which it was originally written. If we interpret the writings from long ago using the definitions we have today, we will miss the message of the author. What message will we receive? How will it change the content today and how will we interpret it in twenty, thirty or fifty years from now? How will we be able to achieve a target if the foundation keeps moving? When we misinterpret national or legal documents or historic speeches using today’s definitions, it will affect our lives, our society, and our country.

Before We Get Started

Here are two definitions you will need to know as you read this book.

Self-Serving: Preoccupied with one's interests, disregarding the concerns, needs, well-being, etc., of others; serving to further one's own selfish pursuits; habitually seeking one's own advantage, especially at the expense of others. They reject the existence of truth.

Those who force their own agenda and ideologies on the unsuspecting. They plan to make official their way of thinking. The goal is to drive the behavior of all others, to get people to think their way. They do this stealthily and slowly so people will not see it coming. Although it is a lengthy process, the unsuspecting will not notice how far they have drifted from the original.

They use television and movies to funnel their points; they change textbooks to teach what to think; they influence laws to their benefit; and they use language secretly as a means to achieve their goals.

The moves they make have been carefully designed to get them their desired results. They are without qualms about how this will affect others even those in the majority. Everything they do has a purpose and is calculated to achieve a certain result. They depend on the people to continue in a state of sleep.

Synonyms –Manipulators, Coverts, Premeditators, Connivers

NOTE: Self-Serving is not in Webster’s First American Dictionary. His definition of selfish is closest: Regarding one’s own interest chiefly or solely; influenced in actions by a view to private advantage.

Sheeple: From sheep and people – those who are easily led and go through life following along, as sheep follow their leader and follow the herd. Not awake or aware as to what is happening – they are sleeping; they don’t care to know what is going on around them, thinking it doesn’t affect them, although it does.

They are set in their lives, thinking there is no other way. They are not open to any new ideas, new ways of doing things, and they don’t like it when they are forced to change how they do something. For example – when the refrigerator first came out, they would have opposed the idea. Eventually they would switch to follow others.

They are unwilling to learn anything and they think they know everything. Ninety percent of the population are Sheeple, according to a study by The University of Leeds, one of the top 100 universities in the world. If you think you aren’t a Sheeple then you are.

Synonyms – Sleeping, Sheep, Asleep

CHAPTER 1

The Dictionary

Whether online or in print, the dictionary is a major source for understanding what words mean. We read a word we aren’t familiar with and check it out in the dictionary. Someone tells us something we don’t understand and we look it up. Schools use the dictionary to teach students the definition of words. It is our source of expertise for the meaning of words. What we don’t realize is that the definitions of words are changing.

Sure, we know the dictionary changes. There are many new versions of it since The First American Dictionary in 1828. There are several reasons for the changes.

Times have changed since 1828. We now have things that weren’t around before like iPod, Google (noun) - Googling (verb), microwave, airplane and automobile. We also do things that haven’t been around long such as twerking, social networking, selfies and hashtag. For the dictionary to be our source, it would need to add words as the times change. New words are added at the first of the year but announced a couple of months earlier.

New definitions of existing words are also added to indicate how different generations use them. Take the word crib. A baby boomer would describe crib as a bed for babies. To a millennial, the word crib would mean a place of residence. Words change to keep up with slang.

Misunderstandings also occur in other forms of communication. A major form of conversation these days is texting. To shorten the message, we often use acronyms. If a young person texts BTW, they mean by the way. I sent BTW to an 89-year-old friend of mine. When she received the text, she asked me what it meant so I told her. She laughed and said she thought it meant, Bring the wheelchair. Different generations can have a hard time communicating. Confusion with the meanings of words can also happen by demographics, social status, etc.

The dictionary needs to be updated so it will continue to be our source for words. It needs to be used as our standard. What happens if the meanings of words change? How will we communicate if we have different definitions? What will be the effectiveness of a language that changes its meanings?

Yet word meanings are changing and have been. What a word meant in 1828 might not have the same meaning as now. Who changed it, or better yet, who has the right to change it?

There are some likely explanations as to who might be altering the definition of words. Philologist’s have a love of words and a desire to know the origin and construction of language. Their study is Etymology, which looks at the root or origin of words. Are the Philologists changing the definitions of words?

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia written collaboratively by the people who use it. Anyone can post a word and a definition to the site. Those who contribute don’t need to have any qualifications or expertise about what they post. The information on the site comes from anyone who puts it there.

Some people use Wikipedia to discover the meaning of a word. Do people know that anyone can post what they want? Do they believe they have gained the correct knowledge when consulting Wikipedia and use this information as the foundation of their belief? How can people believe this online site is an expert reference to go to when thousands of changes are being made to it per hour?

We are obsessed with statistics. We poll people to determine what their thoughts are. We take polls to find out how we feel, what we should think, how we should act and what is right. Once the poll is tallied, we give the results and claim this is what people want. We are basing what is right on the popular answer. Are we using that method to determine the definition of words?

It’s scary to think of what we are using as an official resource. We don’t ask questions when looking up a word because we think the sources available are correct. Whether we are referencing Wikipedia, consulting the current dictionary or relying on the slang of today, the definitions of our words are changing. What we think we are saying might be interpreted by the listener as something completely different.

Now that our eyes are open, we can’t go back. Now that we see things clearly, we have to know the answers. What are the correct meanings to the words we use today? We want to know. We need to know. How can we find out?

The best place to start would be the beginning. Let’s start with the American dictionary itself. By looking at how it came about and what was going on at that time, we will understand its true purpose.

CHAPTER 2

Noah Webster – The Author Of The First American Dictionary

In the 1700s, America was a new nation made up of immigrants from Europe and Western Asia. They were looking for a new way of life, one that allowed them to live according to their beliefs. To them, Europe had veered off and given in to laws that were perverted, lowered values, quality and purity, and degraded human nature.

America tried to separate itself from Great Britain. Unrest took hold