Personhood

There is a recurring push to broaden the definitions of things such as "person" or "vegetable". It is a bizarre thing. Define a word? Legally? I wonder if government is really the place to be making dictionaries. It already does a lot. A lot of things it shouldn't, and a lot of neglecting things it ought to be doing. This might be just me, but the making of dictionaries shouldn't really be on the list.

To me, "Person" means a a human being. Usually referring to a more or less full grown person. But really just amorphous word encompassing just about everyone in the Homo sapiens genus and species. Vegetables grow out of the ground, are usually plants, and offer lots of nutrition. If someone uses these words for a radically different purpose (like a collection of people such as a corporation, government, or little league team; or lamb) they are either not speaking English anymore or just lying creatively. We've already rather cluttered ourselves by calling mushrooms vegetables and wondering if potatoes and tomatoes can be included.

Laws in America should be written in an American language. Most of the time, that's English, though I'm open to some being written in French, ASL, or Spanish, as those are languages we actually speak. Redefining things from English to, what, "Governese", doesn't fulfill the purpose of enforcing or creating laws. How would anyone be able to trust anything said? If we started down this path, someone could say, "I believe in freedom for all", and that could actually mean "Most people should be told what to do for their own good. That's just fact." Which would be a really dumb thing to say.

What does the word "person" mean to you?