A Portmanteau: Humpty Dumpty sat on a Woard

[Perry Noid]

Makes me a worrier.

On Monday, December 7, 2015, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> In the beginning there was the War, then came the Ward, then the Word.
>
> The "global war on terrorism" has challenged our language:
>
> what is a war these days,
> what is a global war,
> how is it different from world wars of the past,
> and what is a war on global terrorism,
> what is terrorism,
> and how will language,
> and the law,
> the laws of nations, of alliances and treaties, of international
> organizations, of agreements on issues like prisoners of war, and thus, the
> Wards of war, be they prisons or hospitals or both
> describe, define, and make legal sense of it all?
>
> Interpretation of law is dependent on the meaning of words. There are
> considerable differences in the interpretation and application of the
> agreed to international laws, with respect to all these questions.
>
> War makes Humpty Dumptys of us all. We use words as we see fit, with
> arrogance, with out regard for the Alice who questions our meanings. We mix
> them up, expeditiously, merge them with contradictory meanings, and justify
> our crimes and so on. The War makes of the Word a Ward and we are but
> prisoners in it.
>
> And all the kings horses and men can't pull the portmanteau apart again.
>
> Only peace can do that.
>
>
>
>
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