On Sept. 6, 1620, one hundred and two pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower from Plymouth, England. They were seeking freedom to worship God according to their conscience and not according to the dictates of the state. After an arduous journey, they dropped anchor in the New World on Nov. 21, 1620. They had intended to go to Virginia but found themselves in present day New England. There they first set foot at Plymouth Rock.

In March 2017, Kevin Shaw, a student at Pierce College in Los Angeles, filed a lawsuit against the community college. The college administrators had stopped him from passing out copies of the U.S. Constitution in Spanish. They argued that he had not sought permission from them and that he was doing this outside the school’s free speech zone, a designated area the size of three parking spaces. Shaw argued that his civil right to free speech had been violated.

In The Golden Girls, Dorothy Zbornak fires off one caustic remark after another to the naïve Rose from St. Olaf, to Southern Belle Blanche, and to her feisty mom Sophia, a match for her sharp tongue. In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper constantly puts down his friends with his scientific retorts. And, womanizer Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men comes in for a tie for sarcasm with sharp-tongued Max Black from 2 Broke Girls. From these characters comes an unrelenting barrage of sarcasm.

Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln both fought bravely on opposite sides of the Civil War. Both were convinced that they were doing what was right. Yet, no matter who won the war, slavery was evil before the war just as it was after the war. Hitler worked passionately for the evil cause that he espoused, just as Gandhi exerted his energies for the goals that he judged morally good. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist convicted of delivering babies and then killing them, steadfastly pursued his goals while Mother Teresa worked with untiring zeal to save the lives of the destitute and abandoned.

From the beginning of the 21st century, the English language has been undergoing radical surgery. Words once acceptable have been cut from common usage and branded as a cancer infecting society with sexist attitudes. Today, it is better to ask for a server in a restaurant and not for a waiter or waitress. These last two nouns might offend a person who identifies as neither. Better to say flight attendant and not steward or stewardess. First-year student, not freshman. Chairperson, not chairman. Firefighter, not fireman. Spokesperson, not spokesman. The list could go on.