This is Mamet’s own example, and still the cleanest one. For a hundred and fifty-eight years the United States had a Department of War. It fought wars. Everyone knew what it did, because the name said so.

In 1947 it was folded into a “National Military Establishment,” and in 1949 that was renamed the Department of Defense. Nothing about the building changed. The budget went up. What changed was that from then on, every war the country fought was, by definition, defense. The name had quietly settled the argument before anyone could have it.

The rename is a perfect specimen because it isn’t a lie. The department does defend things. But the word was chosen for what it lets you not say, and that is the whole business of a semantic chicken: a word selected to keep the speaker from having to look at the thing.

A footnote the essay didn’t live to see: in 2025 the department was authorized to call itself the Department of War again, as a “secondary title.” Whether that is honesty returning or just the other euphemism is left to the reader.