So who cares if we have to adjust our verbiage to satisfy paper pushers? Everyone should care because this is the symptom of a much larger problem. Eliminating a word from our vocabulary is the group of petechiae hiding under the shirt of the guy with fever and a headache. Manipulation of the language is the sign of a government that looks down upon its citizens with a snobbish paternal smile and a heart filled with contempt.

Philip Dick, science fiction writer from the last century, put it well when he said, “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”

If the federal government was not poised to afflict every hospital and physician’s office from Albuquerque to Zebulon, this would be drivel and my time would be better spent drinking a Yuengling Lager and watching the Tigers beat the Indians. But our government is, in fact, preparing to release upon our land the most onerous and repugnant collection of regulations ever designed by man.

This recent little foray into word control will seem like a lazy fly one might catch with chop sticks after the swarm of locusts descends and decimates every last stalk of corn in our fields. And there we will stand with a pitchfork in one hand and a computer mouse in the other wondering how such a disaster could happen. The government will have taken control of our professional language.

You may use the word obese but it will be at the expense of revenue. To remain in favor, the proper phrase will be satiety deficiency. There will be no chronic pain because of the negative implications associated with the words. Opioid receptor malfunction will please those in control.

Many of you, by now, think I have stopped taking my medication. But ask yourself these questions. Ten years ago would you have believed that the government would have warrantless access to our voice and electronic communications? Would you have believed that we would kill an American citizen, without trial, using an unmanned aircraft? Would you have believed that the IRS would put groups of Americans on a watch list and systematically prevent the granting of a tax status made easily available to others?

I was going to pay my income taxes this year but have decided that income is no longer an acceptable term at my house. If the IRS wants my money they will need to use the proper language. Personal remuneration is the acceptable term for 2013. They have plenty of time to change their forms.