Transparency: take their word for it

This column is obviously written with words (some might suggest too many) and often makes words its subject. There is, indeed, a magic to words, whether it's finding just the right word or having the final word. Whether it's a "word to the wise" that's sufficient, or a word of honor that's broken or a word of advice that's followed, or a password that provides entrance or a dirty word that (should) embarrass, words are what define us not only as human beings, but as thinking, fair-minded people.

How lucky are those who celebrate words through word of mouth (or the written word). How sad, however, for those so sensitive to "English as she is spoke" that the wrong word is not only jarring but often downright painful.

A current example of "words gone wild" is the word "swipe." When I was a kid, swipe meant pilfer or steal, as in "they swiped my car." Now, apparently, you don't sneak unto a subway but rather enter legally using a card that you... swiped.

Another word that seems to have morphed beyond the meaning it had when words (and song lyrics) had meaning is "transparent" (not to be confused with putting one's parents in a trance). Years ago, transparent meant "capable of being seen through." Indeed, when someone or someone's motives were transparent it meant you could see right through their supposedly noble façade to their very core, which was often less than noble.

Now when we say transparent or transparency it's a substitute (as if there could be a substitute) for candor or forthrightness. We say we want to "see through" something, when what we really want is to examine an idea, event or person, and see into them or even beyond them.

Current politicians extol transparency, and, maybe as it applies to many of them, it may be an accurate term, since all too many of them lacking substance or depth, are, in fact, not simply pains in the neck, but pains of glass reflecting nothing, with the light of reason just passing right through and beyond them.

This sudden invitation to engage in transparency is frequently just a diversion to avoid good, old-fashioned honesty, integrity, candor, openness, scrupulousness, veracity, reliability, forthrightness, guilelessness, fidelity, loyalty, frankness, sincerity, outspokenness, plainspokenness, dependability, authenticity, honor and goodness... all the words they might want to print on an opaque card, refer to it often and protect it, so nobody... swipes it.