A classical ideal of truth and knowledge is the concept of a market for ideas: as thinking individuals, we encounter competing ideas, we evaluate them for their best fit to reality, and then let the best and brightest facts form the basis of our beliefs. That would be the scientist's way, in theory at least. But in practice, most of the time we are in a market for justifications. We shop for words not because they contain ideas, but because they contain stories about ideas. Often we are not seeking statements as facts to help us figure out what we should believe. Usually we already know what we believe. What we seek are statements to justify those beliefs ― the lawyer's way. Language might be good for this function but we can use it to do better. By treating language with greater respect, we can achieve more than simple self-defense.