Loaded Language
Words are absorbent. Used often enough in partisan slogans or ad campaigns, or by certain religious groups or by "influencers" (itself a word with a troubling history), or spun into new usages by disaffected teens, they can be diverted from their broader purposes. They become contaminated by association or overdetermined by repetition, and so less usable for more neutral efforts to identify or describe. As words are turned into trademarks or code language, they become harder for speakers outside the…