Words are what you make of them.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.

ALMOST TWO AND A HALF millennia ago, Plato warned, "False words are not only evil in themselves, but ... they infect the soul with evil." American Indians accused whites of speaking with a "forked tongue." In modern times, George Orwell, in his prophetic novel, 1984, predicted the present atmosphere of "doublespeak."

Words, like ideas, have consequences and possess the power to promote truth or spread lies. Today, good words have become bad and language that should be meant to clarify is meant to confuse. For instance, the Clinton Administration uses the terms "investment" to signify spending tax dollars and "public participation" to mean sacrifice. Paradoxical oxymorons have become out-and-out contradictions such as "managed competition."

The history of structural reversing is time-honored. Biblical scholars draw attention to the fact that Lucifer, once God's "prosecuting attorney," becomes the prosecuted; Jesus, the proclaimer, becomes the proclaimed. In various classical tragedies, it is the good guy who becomes the bad guy. Examples are Othello, Macbeth, and, in real life, Richard Nixon. On occasion, the bad guy becomes the good guy, as Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Similarly, ugly words such as "swamp" have been given the dignity of environmental status and now are called wetlands.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R.-Ore.), the alleged sexual harasser, appears now to be the harassed as nearly every women's group is out after his scalp. Many whites also feel that, although minorities once were the harassed, the latter now have become the new harassers, denying whites privileges they insist are exclusively theirs.

Harold Washington, former black mayor of Chicago, humorously used to tell his white constituents that they should understand when he said "Bad," he really meant "Good!" Through the employment of euphemisms, terrorists have become freedom fighters. The word "destabilization" more often than not implies political assassination. The handicapped are "differently-abled"; taxes are "revenue enhancement"; and many of those who are unable (read "unwilling") to hack it in a tough world are designated as "underprivileged" or "disadvantaged. " Deliberate lies simply are forms of governmental "disinformation," such as Pres. Dwight Eisenhower's denial that the U-2 downed by the Soviet Union was a spy plane. (Interestingly, now that the Cold War is over, the government has admitted that at least 31 flights had been shot down and 138 Air...