ABSTRACT
It is all too easy to underestimate the power of language … because almost every human being knows and uses one or more languages, we have let that miracle be trivialized … We forget, or are unaware of, the power that language has over our minds and our lives; we use that power ourselves as casually as we use the electric power in our homes, with scarcely a thought given to its potential to help or harm. We make major decisions about language on the most flimsy and trivial-and often entirely mistaken-grounds.
