re: Pence says it’s "unacceptable" for Trump to call Jan. 6 defendants hostages.

quote:

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Held for years with no charges or trials is technically a hostage.

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No it’s not. Is English a second language to you? A hostage is someone held to extort something. That’s not at all what is happening. What you probably mean is that they are political prisoners. Fine, but that is not the same as hostages.

There are all kinds of words that are misused like this. We call an actual hostage a “hero”, although they did nothing at all heroic. We call a terrorist, who blows up himself to kill innocent civilians, a coward, although he was incredibly brave.

Our language is being perverted by generations who no longer read except for social media posts.