From the earliest days of Pirate Wires, the culture warrior’s obsession with altering language has fascinated me, as in many ways I think this single struggle defines our contemporary world. From the internet-enabled malleability of language, which I explored at great length in Tether, and Kat Rosenfield explored more recently in Gaslight, to the rapid pace of term adoption made possible by viral sharing, relatively recent advances in technology have enabled political activists to alter our words in a manner once unimaginable. Today, the goal of activists is not to change our culture, but to reshape our language in such a way as they control the very bounds of what is culturally possible. In this regard, they are very much ruthlessly winning.

The most obvious example of activist victory today? Consider how many words, perfectly benign ten or even five years ago, you are no longer allowed to say. Then, in the absence of such words, consider what concepts you are no longer capable of expressing. In a funny, insightful Sunday morning read, River catalogues a wild list of our many new linguistic sins.

-Solana