If you're a person who's always been fascinated by the link between language and reality, or just someone who is so dazzled by Hayakawa's "Language in Thought and Action" that you're just chomping at the bit to read more stuff that expands on some of the ideas he explored in this book, "Truth and Opinion" makes an excellent companion. It's short, but the length of the material only reflects the succinctness of Cooney's ideas and not a lack of depth or insight into the subject.

The subject matter? An exploration into the question of why differing opinions cause so much strife and conflict in the world. Cooney speculates, like Hayakawa, that it all boils down to the misuse of language-- that in using verbal shorthand to express an opinion, people create "linguistic errors" that result in a confusion that causes them to start violent conflict, kill each other, or even die for opinions that they believe are *truths.* On one hand, I am inclined to question whether this is entirely accurate. It seems a bit of an overstatement to me to say that all of the religious wars and bloody persecutions of human history all boiled down to people making linguistic errors. However, I am convinced that Cooney has truly shed light on the fact that linguistic errors *do* play a major part in conflict-- not so much in creating it, but in perpetuating it. Why is it that if a king or ruler says Nation A or People B are the scorn of the earth and should all be killed, many people will simply accept his words as truth, die and kill in the name of this truth, and continue the madness he started? If you too have been troubled by this question, you will find the answer here (or at least a highly plausible one). As an added bonus, this book also makes a foray into ethics and answers the question of why people seem to sharply contradict the very morality they so staunchly defend.

Terrific and thought provoking, and a must-read if you're interested in linguistics or just a person who likes to think of ways of solving the world's problems.