I found myself entranced by the definition of the word azhigwa in Counter-Desecration, which I ended up looking for a “standardized” definition afterwards, which I found to be “now, at this time”. The image of focusing on the now in nature is a very poignant one and one that I think Calvino would be satisfied with, both with the imagery and length of the definition. Calvino states that the problem with language is that it either will have “a certain amount of noise that alters the essence of the information” (Calvino, 91), or “it always says something less than the sum of what can be experienced” (Calvino, 91) Yet, because this was a word I had seen for the first time, there was no prior experience to compare to, and it highlighted just how powerful our choice of words are in the images that they invoke, something that both Calvino and Lippman address, albeit from different perspectives. Lippman decries the use of catch-all words like socialism that mean anything the writer wants it to mean: “If those words are meaningless lumps charged with emotion, instead of the messengers of fact, all sense of evidence breaks down” (Lippman, 85) Instead of sticking to a specific definition and set of images, vague words allow writers to manipulate readers into believing anything could be an example of anything else, and therefore can push their own personal agenda in the news, something we would want an objective point of view from. Adding on to Chloe’s point, as we see the definition of culture evolve as time passes, it can vary with ideology as well (as I suppose a definition of azhigwa from an organization focusing on traveling would not be the same as this one). Lippman does show concern regarding this, but the question of what the exact definition of a word would be still remains at large. It seems unsatisfying to find that the objective definition of a certain word is that of the majority, so I am left pondering what a good solution to this problem would be.