ABSTRACT
As scientists, we tend to look at words as though they had “technical” point meanings only. We say, “This word means this, and that word means that.” Frequently we fail to realize that each word has a more or less easily definable area of meaning. Few, if any, represent a point of meaning. Even “X” has ten definitions which cover half a column of space in Webster! Many words had a well-established usage before our particular science developed to the point it has today. Many words had, and have, an established usage from which the current usage has departed by change or modification. Some of us, and many in the rank and file of Christians, as judged by writings and conversation, it would seem, fail to recognize this simple principle of semantics. A failure to recognize the fact that words are not points of meaning, but areas of meaning, leads to misunderstanding and error. For example, the word “evolution” has a well-established general usage. We can refer to some aspect of it which happens to be true as “evolution,” or we can use some narrow technical definition of it with which we can agree, and say, “I am therefore an evolutionist”--which is not the case at all, of course, except as we use the word in that very limited sense, ignoring all the other well-established parts of the meaning. We then actually speak erroneously, and others are misled.
