Thomas Sowell on the meaning of words

Thomas Sowell is a brilliant man. Today, he holds forth on the meaning of words:

Inflation also means that all the talk about how higher taxes will be confined to "the rich" is nonsense. Inflation is a hidden tax that takes away the value of money held by everyone at every income level.

Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has if you count the tail as a leg. When they answered "five," Lincoln told them that the answer was four. The fact that you called the tail a leg did not make it a leg.

It is too bad that Lincoln is not still around today. He might emancipate us all from our enslavement to words.

When you call something a "stimulus" package, that does not mean that it actually stimulates. The way individuals, banks and businesses in general are hanging onto their money suggests that "sedative" package might be more accurate.