I often get criticized in the comments for softening my language.
The critics aren’t entirely wrong.
I rarely say I slaughtered a steer. I usually say I harvested one. In agriculture, that’s common language. It sounds more respectful, more professional, and less harsh. At the same time, I’m often the first person to roll my eyes when someone says “unhoused” instead of “homeless.”
My instinct is to think that changing the word doesn’t change reality. Lately, though, I’ve been wondering if I’m holding everyone else to a standard I’m not holding myself to.
Maybe we’re all doing it.
Maybe all of us, regardless of our politics or profession, have become experts at shaping reality through language. Words don’t simply describe the world. They shape the way we experience it. They influence how deeply we feel something, how urgently we respond, and ultimately what we’re willing to tolerate. That may be why language has become one of the greatest battlegrounds of our time.
Consider how often we soften the emotional weight of difficult things. Layoffs become workforce reductions. Torture becomes enhanced interrogation. Civilian deaths become collateral damage. Abortion becomes reproductive health care in some conversations, reproductive rights in others, abortion in many, and murder in others still.
The underlying event hasn’t changed, but the language has, and with it our emotional response. We instinctively know that words matter, even when we pretend they don’t.
I see the same thing in my own life. I almost never use the word “illegal” when referring to someone who entered the country unlawfully. I usually say “undocumented.” Why?
Probably because when I married my husband, he was undocumented. Others would have called him illegal, but I knew the man before I knew the label. Without realizing it, my own experience shaped the language I chose, and that language shaped the way I told the story.
Recently, I received a government grant, and the paperwork described my husband as “historically socially disadvantaged.” I had to stop and read it twice.
Historically socially disadvantaged? What does that even mean?
I don’t think he would ever describe himself that way. He’d tell you he grew up poor in Oaxaca, worked hard, crossed a border, became a citizen, and built a life.
Yet the government’s vocabulary doesn’t simply describe people. It categorizes them, and over time, those categories begin shaping how institutions and even individuals see themselves.
The words we teach our children matter even more. I’ve written before about race in public schools because I worry about the labels children inherit before they’re old enough to question them.
If my children are taught to see themselves primarily through the lens of oppressor and oppressed, victim and victimizer, those words don’t merely describe them. They begin shaping how they understand themselves and each other.
Neither victim nor oppressor is a particularly empowering foundation on which to build a human life. Labels don’t just communicate identity. Given enough time, they can become an identity.
But language works the other way, too. Sometimes, it doesn’t soften reality. Sometimes, it intensifies it. Every major conflict eventually becomes a battle over vocabulary before it becomes a battle over policy.
Is it an occupation or a liberation? A military operation or a massacre? A war or a genocide?
Whether we agree with any particular label is almost beside the point. We all understand that whoever influences the language often influences how the public understands the event itself.
COVID-19 may have been the clearest example in my lifetime of language shaping public opinion. Every phrase seemed to carry political and emotional weight.
“Essential.” “Nonessential.” “Safe and effective.” “Misinformation.” “Follow the science.” “Anti-vaxxer.”
Those weren’t simply descriptive terms. They framed conversations before the conversations had even begun. The words people accepted often determined the conclusions they were willing to consider.
Once I started paying attention, I realized this isn’t a problem that belongs to the political left or the political right. Every profession has its own vocabulary. Every institution has its preferred terminology. Every movement develops talking points. As someone who writes a daily column, I have them, too.
Talking points exist because words shape public opinion. They frame the conversation before it has even begun.
But it isn’t just journalists or politicians doing this. Every one of us is a collection of the ideas that surround us. We are influenced by our families, our churches, our neighborhoods, the podcasts we listen to, the newspapers we read, the people we follow online, and the conversations we have around the dinner table.
Whether we admit it or not, we are constantly borrowing language from the communities we belong to. Eventually, their words become our words, and our words become the way we see the world.
There is another side to this that I’ve had to learn the hard way. I have a personality that likes to push buttons. Sometimes, I’ll choose language because I know it will get a reaction. Sometimes, I’ll say something in the strongest possible terms because I’m trying to shake people awake. Occasionally, that moves the conversation forward. More often, it simply causes people to stop listening.
My younger brother has always been a little gentler than I am. Before meetings with policymakers or other influential people, he’ll sometimes remind me to be careful with my words. Not because he wants me to compromise my convictions, but because he knows that if people stop listening, the conversation is over before it begins. He’s usually right.
I’ve often talked about the importance of speaking into the listening. By that I mean recognizing that communication isn’t just about what I want to say. It’s about what another human being is capable of hearing.
When I stand in front of a room full of conservative ranchers, I don’t use exactly the same language I would use standing in front of environmentalists in California. My principles don’t change. My goal is always the same: healthier soil, healthier water, healthier food, healthier humanity.
But if I insist on speaking in a way that guarantees the audience rejects me before I’ve finished my second sentence, I may have protected my pride, but I probably haven’t changed a single mind.
Speaking into the listening isn’t compromising the truth. It’s respecting the humanity of the person you’re trying to reach. That’s the tightrope.
Language shouldn’t become so soft that it conceals reality, but it also shouldn’t become so aggressive that it prevents understanding. Somewhere between euphemism and provocation lies honesty.
I’ve written extensively about glyphosate, and it’s another reminder of how powerful language can be. When political leaders describe access to certain agricultural chemicals as a matter of national security, those words immediately frame the debate differently.
I happen to believe losing glyphosate overnight would be catastrophic for our current agricultural system. I also believe its widespread use carries significant costs. Both statements can be true at the same time. Yet whichever half of that story we choose to emphasize shapes how people understand the issue before they’ve even examined the evidence.
Most of the battles being fought today aren’t simply battles over laws or elections. They’re battles over ideas, over our attention, and over the lens through which we view the world. That lens is built with words, and every one of us helps shape it every time we open our mouths or put our fingers on a keyboard.
Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to my own vocabulary. I’ve spent years wondering whether other people were softening reality while rarely asking whether I was doing the same.
Maybe saying “harvested” instead of “slaughtered” changes the way I experience the act. Maybe saying “undocumented” instead of “illegal” reflects my own life experience. Maybe every one of us carries words that reveal not only what we believe but also what we find difficult to face.
I’m not convinced the answer is harsher language, and I’m certainly not convinced it’s softer language. I think the answer is more honest language. Language that tells the truth as we understand it, while remaining humble enough to recognize that words don’t just reveal reality; they shape it. Every conversation leaves someone seeing the world a little differently.
Language doesn’t merely describe reality.
Little by little, conversation by conversation, it helps create the reality we all live in.
