"English is a funny language."
"English is a funny language."
"You think you know what a word signifies, but then the world blindsides you with a new meaning."
"Exactly. Like the word 'woke.' It used to be a simple enough term for returning to consciousness from sleep. 'I woke up.' Classic English phrase."
"So classic!"
"Then, progressives started using it to mean aware of social justice issues. 'When it comes to racism, Grayson is sooooooooo woke.'"
"Not a classic use of the word, but still relatively comprehensible."
"Exactly. But then the right appropriated the word to mean...well, anything they hate. History. Sexuality. Pineapple on pizza. Anything can be woke, now. Pineapple on pizza is so woke! But if a word can mean anything, it really means nothing."
"Thus proving Roland Barthes right - not that the right would ever admit it."
"Not that they would even know who Roland Barthes was."
"Even I don't know who Roland Barthes was, and I introduced him into the conversation!"
"Umm..."
"What? Too soon?"
"The crazy thing is that even as the right pollutes the meaning of words, it demands that the left speak clearly. If anybody on the left says something with even the slightest ambiguity, the right will deploy its echo chamber to excoriate them."
"I guess the right is trying to have their cake and eat it, too."
"No, they're not."
"I beg your pardon."
"Don't beg. It doesn't speak well of you."
"Sorry."
"I mean: you can't eat your cake without having it. That would be absurd. 'I don't have my cake - it is in a dining room on the other side of the city. But I'm really enjoying eating it, now.' Totally absurd."
"It's a common saying about people who try have things both ways."
"Except it's not the saying about people who try to have things both ways."
"No? Then, what is the saying about people who try to have things both ways?"
"You can't eat your cake and have it, too."
"Same difference."
"No, it's not! Eating something and then expecting to still have it is about people trying to have things both ways. Having something and then eating it is just a normal causative relationship!"
"Obviously, the way individual words change over time can apply to entire phrases, as well."
"You can't have your - what? Oh. Right. You're absolutely right. This is a process known as 'semantic drift.'"
"It's exactly like the way ice bergs drift away from the pole."
"Umm, no, it's not exactly like that."
"It's somewhat like the way ice bergs drift from the pole."
"No. No, it's nothing like that."
"Oh. Okay. It's more like...the way friends drift apart when one moves to another country?"
"It's more like a game of literary broken telephone. Every time a phrase is repeated, there is the potential that the context will give it a slightly different meaning. Over time, countless repetitions will cause the meaning to slowly drift, eventually overtaking the original meaning."
"It's a wonder that human beings are able to communicate at all!"
"Well, you know what they say: the proof is in the eating."
"I'm sorry?"
"The proof is in the eating."
"Nobody says that."
"What?" (pause) "Oh. You're right."
"Thank you."
"They say: the proof of the pudding is in the eating."
"No. Nobody says that."
"What do they say?"
"The proof is in the pudding."
"What does that even mean?"
"That...that means the proof of an idea is in its implementation."
"How? Are you talking about some kind of cozy mystery where the murderer buries evidence in a butterscotch dessert?"
"N...ooooo..."
"Perhaps a photographic contact sheet has been secreted in a chocolate pudding?"
"I...don't think so..."
"Perhaps the solution to Fermat's Very Last, No Kidding This Time Theorem has been hidden in a bowl of vanilla deliciousness?"
"That was a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"
"Language can be very accommodating that way."
"Still..."
"Okay, look... If you want to know if a pudding is well made, you have to taste it. 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.' The more common phrase, 'The proof is in the pudding,' makes no sense."
"It could."
"It could?"
"Make sense. That's the whole point of language - because of semantic drift it evolves. So, if everybody agrees that 'The proof is in the pudding' means you have to experience something to be able to evaluate it, then that's what it means."
"I don't agree with that!"
"You always did have a penchant for nostalgia."
"But...but...but...!"
"English is a funny language."
"English is a funny language."