"It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." With those words, America's Humpty Dumpty declared war on the fixedly rigid mentality that binds writers and speakers to the meanings of their words as taken by their rea…

Last year, I read a story, a nightmare really, of a father who, arriving home at the end of a long day at work, drove his truck through piles of leaves in his yard. To his horror, one of the piles caused his truck to bu…