Jeeze, LH, this drum has been beat since Dr Johnson misdefined oats. Count Korzybski fought this battle in the 30's; Hayakawa fought it in the 60's. The poeple who have chimed in on the theme that fixed ideas are aberrative, and semantic "identification" with the territory leads to stupidity in action, are innumerable. I think, overall they have done some good, but the problem of course is overcoming the "talk to   the hand" syndrome. As a young Barb Streisand said in "Butterflies are Free", ''none is so deaf as he who will not hear''.

A