Words matter to me. After all, they’re the things with which I have earned my living for nearly five decades.

The greatest lesson that I have learned about words in all these years is this: They communicate more than their plain meanings.

I never would have believed that the governor of my state, Kay Ivey, would be playing catch-up with the governor of Florida in spouting bigotry via a single, derogatory word: woke.

According to the Associated Press, Ivey recently replaced a cabinet member who ran the state’s award-winning prekindergarten program. The insinuation was that little children were being taught from a book of “woke concepts.” In truth, the book in question isn’t a curriculum; it’s a guide for early childhood educators.

Besides, this has nothing to do with little children and everything to do with conservative politicians and what they call “woke” teachings.

Are you “woke”? Are you a “patriot”? Am I a “snowflake” or a “real” American?

I woke this morning as my husband placed a mug of coffee on my bedside table. The patriots at Valley Forge saw plenty of snowflakes — and their patriotism as well as their suffering were real.

As you see, words aren’t only symbolic devices that are written or sounds that are spoken to communicate. They are tokens, talismans and pithy expressions in themselves.

“Woke” is only the latest in a long line of words that are shaped and polished to suit the purposes of those who use them. Words like “woke” aren’t specific, and that’s the point. They are simple repositories for a jumble of emotions, fears and hatreds that avoid any analysis or thought.

There’s nothing new about this.

When I was a child, we were taught that “commies” were the greatest imaginable evil. I was surprised when I learned that the U.S. had an embassy in Moscow, and that a “commie” had appeared on television with Vice President Richard Nixon. The “commie” — Nikita Khrushchev — and the vice president even joked with one another. Shocking.

“Liberal” once was understood as what amount of butter you spread on your bread. There were even college degrees in “liberal arts.” “Liberal” wasn’t a political statement back in the day.

“Politically correct” is supposed to mean something, but I’m not sure what. It’s bad, however, and we shouldn’t have to suffer from its effects, whatever it is or they are.   An election cycle or two ago, everyone in line at the grocery store decried the evils of “socialism.” But if they’d been pressed to describe what “socialism” is, most wouldn’t have been able to.

If at least one of them had simply said, “I don’t know what it is, but I’m against it,” we’d at least would’ve had honesty without wisdom.

The hoi polli (there’s an old one for you) are concerned more with the marker than the meaning.

It cuts both ways. Nice college freshmen these days don’t say “slaves.” They say “enslaved people.” Both are equally communicative, but the latter, clumsier phrase apparently reminds us that real people were enslaved and that we should be sensitive to that fact. (I will pass on the linguistic difficulty raised by a 20-year-old with blue hair and a nose ring who insists on being called “they.”)

A book from my distant past, “The Mother’s Almanac,” taught us young moms the joy of baked chicken covered in sweet fruit sauce and the horror of learning that “your 3″ was dropping the “F-bomb” in preschool. Also in that era, young mothers were scolded by sociologists that “labeling is disabling.” (I’m not sure that’s true. After all, my husband teasingly called our son “s***head” for years, and he turned out all right.)

Those labels — those words without real meaning but which convey so much — should be questioned.

Gov. Ivey knows full well that when used as it is these days, “woke” connotes hating Black people, Hispanics, the federal government, liberals, Democrats and anyone who doesn’t think, look or behave the way the speaker does. It’s a call to division and bigotry.

I’m not especially surprised that our governor has joined many other politicians in promoting this idea. Kay Ivey is a cagey political hack who knows how to appeal to her angry and frustrated base.

Indeed, to be angry with a Deep South politician for continuing the tradition of leading by pitting groups against each other would be like getting angry with my Great Danes because they can’t do algebra.

You, however, should know it when you see it.

If you are motivated by these talismanic tags, you should check yourself. Ask — in the privacy of your own home, of course — what those words really mean and why.

Who knows? With enough introspection, you might just find yourself tagged with a word and quality of your own: “Wisdom.”

Frances Coleman is a former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. Email her at [email protected] and “like” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances.