When some startup CEO says they are on a crusade to change customer service do you get visions of knights on horses riding through Asia Minor? When your girlfriend tells you not to put words in her mouth do you flash back to 2 Samuel 14:3?
Language is great at evolving and incorporating colorful and evocative phrases while stripping out the original connotations.
Yes, I expect this kind of reuse from most people. But it was surprising to hear one world leader using another world leader's most historic phrase from decades beforehand, where the phrase is historic precisely because it was murderous and insincere. So I mentioned it.
Language is great at evolving and incorporating colorful and evocative phrases while stripping out the original connotations.