In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," Humpty Dumpty proudly declares: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." To which Alice replies: "The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things."
Humpty Dumpty could have been an economist. The modern economics profession made a collective decision, long ago, to develop a system of jargon in which words have multiple, sometimes contradictory meanings. Unfortunately, the general public's reaction tends to be similar to that of poor Alice.
Want some examples? There's no shortage.
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