Sometimes the most profound insights can come from the simplest of questions, if we explore them deeply enough. Take, for example, the simple question; “Who should decide what a word means and by what criteria?” I have read that in Iceland there is an official organization that creates and maintains the language of the land. Apparently they do not take well to the importation of words, so that as new technologies develop, new “Icelandic” sounding words must be created for things like a computer “mouse” or a “flash drive.”

Most languages in the world are collaborative efforts of the people using them, with no government officials to determine exactly which uses are appropriate or how to define each word. The closest thing we have to language “authorities” are dictionaries or those who do the research to compile them. But the truth is that no matter how much defining goes on, it is never complete. Words, especially those that do not designate things we can easily point at, are defined in the context of conversation.

For example, what is a country? An online dictionary defines it in this way: “a political state or nation or its territory,” and “the people of a state or district.” But this is immediately insufficient when we start talking abut what is good for a country. How can something be good for a territory? Good can only apply to living beings, and if something is good for a country, how many people in that country does it have to be good for (usually changes are good for some and bad for others)? In general, we each have a different idea about what a country is when we converse, and the definition is a matter of negotiation to some extent.

This definition by negotiation is even more obvious when we start talking about “justice,” “freedom,” “love,” and other concepts that are about as far from being identifiable “things” as we can get.

It is crucial that we share some common ground on the meanings of our words. Otherwise there is little to be gained from talking to one another. If, for example, we agreed on what is a “crime” we can determine which acts to apply the label to, and who to put in jail. But what if my idea of crime is a moral concept, and yours is a legal one? I might think some actions are criminal, but that whether they are against the law or not is not the defining criteria. Is it really a crime to speak one’s mind just because doing so has been outlawed in some places? Now, if we can’t even agree on what a crime is, how can we reasonably discuss what should be done about it?

One way to resolve this (to some extent) is to make the defining criteria those that made the invention of the concept/word necessary in the first place. Humans saw trees, noted the difference between them and bushes or vines, and so created a word for each. While even here there can be debate abut exactly what a tree is, by looking at what the word is pointing to we can’t very easily start thinking “a tree is an annual non-woody plant that grows in lakes.” No, we have some basic agreement that they are woody, mostly single-trunk plants that live for multiple years.

Now, this isn’t as easy with most words, but it isn’t impossible to make some progress toward common ground. If two people honestly want to communicate they can together look at a word like “crime,” and ask why it was invented. We might agree that it was meant to point to those actions which hurt other people unjustly (yes, “unjustly” might require yet another negotiation). If we do agree to this, we can see that legally defined “crimes” which involve no victim are not really crimes. We might then agree that at worst we will make them civil infractions, the equivalent of running a stop sign or having a junk car in your yard in violation of a city ordinance.

Deciding what a word means is a collaborative effort, then, but not just a matter of majority vote. A word was created for a purpose, after all, so we should look to that purpose when defining it.

I could go on, but I hope I have made my first point, that profound insights can come from a simple question.