As a novelist and speechwriter, I like words. I also have a nostalgic fondness for the good old days when they meant something.
It’s easy to blame the Republican party, Rupert Murdoch, and the rest of our press-release-aping press for the fact that words have been largely separated from any meaning in our political discourse. But there’s a commercial side to this trend as well, as I was reminded when I walked by the “Gorgeous Luxury Rental” sign that Corcoran Group Real Estate has placed on the second floor balcony of this building, four blocks from where I live.

I don’t know about you, folks, but in my day, the words “gorgeous” and “luxury” did not describe a $2390 studio apartment in a featureless, ticky-tacky building that sits next to a gas station on a run-down corner one block from a permanent construction site (the Atlantic Yards project).
I guess you can’t blame Corcoran for not trumpeting “Overpriced Apartments in a Disastrous Location.” But at least those words would have meant something.