n independent,
but until the recent revolution the people of Turkey were self-governing
in no sense at all. On the other hand, Canada, though not independent,
is self-governing.[13]

Many an argument goes to wreck through carelessness in the use of words
of this sort. Wherever the subject under discussion has grown into the
partial possession of a special field, but still uses words drawn from
everyday life, you must be careful that not only you, but your audience
also, understand your terms in the more precise way.

Closely related to this kind of ambiguity, and in practice still more
insidious, is the ambiguity which arises from the connotation or
emotional implications of words. The use of "republican" and "democrat"
cited above runs over into this kind of confusion. In collegiate
athletics "professional" has come to have almost an implication of
moral inferiority, when it is often dependent on pretty technical
considerations of expediency. In politics, to one class of temperaments
"conservative," to another "radical," or at any rate "liberal" or
"progressive," carries the implication of the salvation or the ruin of
the country. All such words introduce a sure element of obscurity and
confusion into an argument. If a word stirs your feelings in one way and
those of some of your readers in another, you cannot use that word
safely; in spite of the most careful definitions and disclaimers the
emotional bias will creep in and twist the effect of your words in the
minds of some of your audience. This emotional ambiguity is the most
insidious of all ambiguities in the use of words. The danger from it is
so real that I shall return to it at greater length (see p. 158).

In a good many cases the necessity of defining the terms to be used,
whether in the proposition itself, or in the argument, changes with the
audience. If you begin a movement to introduce a commission form of
government into the town or the city in which you live, at first you
will have to repeat the definition of commission government a good many
times, in order that most of the voters may know exactly what you want
them to do. If the town once wakes up, however, and gets interested, you
and every one else will be using such technicalities as "Galveston
plan," "Des Moines plan," "recall," "initiative," and the like with no
danger of leaving darkness where there should be light.

So even more obviously with school and college questions: if you are
sendin