Creative Intellect

Words

          Often enough, confusing wording leads people to misinterpret the true meaning of a phrase. Ambiguous words and sentences with multiple meanings can easily be misinterpreted, and this can lead to many issues.
         For example, when it comes to situations like the law, wording is crucial. One such situation is defining "torture". "Torture", as defined by the United Nations, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."
         In this definition, phrases such as "severe pain or suffering", and "intimidating or coercing" are subjective. What is severe to one person may not necessarily be severe to the next. The same problem applies to "intimidating", because the concept varies from person to person. When these words are arbitrarily defined, it is difficult to establish a clear line as to what is and is not considered "torture".
         Additionally, the definition includes the provision that torture is "inflicted by...or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity." In all technicalities, this means that if there is no public official present or if the order did not originate from a public official, whatever act of "torture" that was being carried out was not actually torture, because the full definition did not match the description of whatever actions the soldiers were taking.
         When people think about the law, they expect clear definitions illustrating what may or may not be done, not ambiguous words outlining what might possibly be illegal. When words create a fuzzy image, it makes people wonder what sort of secrets those words might be hiding, or what "crimes" they might be allowing.
         Also, it lets criminals push the limits- what would happen if I did this? The law does not explicitly say I may not do it. That, in itself, makes it dangerous, for if the law neither says it is legal or illegal, it would not be too bad for the criminal to commit his crime, and that would be his defense in court: If the law does not say if the action was illegal, how can the court say it actually was? Moreover, even if the law is revised, ex-post facto law says a person can not be convicted of an action that was not a crime at the time it was committed. Ultimately, he will go free.
         Confusing wording and multiple meanings can easily make something good go bad, such as with the example of torture. Instead of preventing it from happening, the law is allowing torture to happen by creating loopholes.