“Improper nouns”, where the meaning of a phrase is more than a sum of the meanings of its constituent words, are not just strictly technical terms. It’s in the

“Improper nouns”, where the meaning of a phrase is more than a sum of the meanings of its constituent words, are not just strictly technical terms. It’s in the way we think and communicate, a word or a grouping of words encountered repeatedly in a certain context acquires a meaning influenced by said context. “Freedom of speech” might be a good example of one. It is a shortcut for a certain concept that is fairly expansive, and not without ambiguities of its own. Now it’s common to see it deconstructed into constituent words, and a sum of their meanings (selected by the communicator) used to give the phrase a new meaning that suits current communication goals the most. Occasionally one party may use the resulting mismatch in meaning to blame the other for duplicity: how dare they say our country has free speech (1) whereas what it has isn’t even close to free speech (2)? Semantics is fun!