As Billie Burke once observed: “It's always best to start at the beginning…”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The original Greek term translated as ‘word’ was ‘logos’ – more accurately – thought, word and reason rolled into one. What is commonly translated as ‘with’ in the second clause was ‘sun’ in the original Greek. This may also be thought of as instrumentality by association.

Thus, a more appropriate rendering of John 1:1 might be:

In the beginning was the trinity of thought, word and reason, and this (thought and word with reason) was the instrumentality of God, and the trinity of thought word and reason was God.

The elements of logos became disassociated long ago. This may have been due (at least in part) to a desire to make the language less harsh than the daily lives of the people at the time.

Unfortunately, euphemistic language has proven to be a double edged sword. While such linguistic distortion can make life’s un-pleasantries a little less so, it also allows people to present the detrimental as desirable.

Accordingly, I do not subscribe to many of the euphemisms that are in common use today. For instance, I do not use public as a synonym for government nor refer to gender when I mean sex. I will generally use linguistic distortions only to help enhance or clarify a concept -- not to deceive!