"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all." – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
Humpty Dumpty and Supreme Court justices may have more in common than meets the eye, at least when involved in the search for the meaning of words. Sometimes the justices take better approaches to the search than at other times, according to a lawyer-student of linguistics. And sometimes they get the answer wrong. Consider the end-of-term's job-bias ruling.
