Michael Ramsey has a nice post on misunderstandings of the content of originalism. The post arises from a recent Alito opinion that uses the word "meretricious," which has multiple senses and hence is ambiguous. Redacting the name of the target of his criticism, he writes,
[A]n especially incisive thinker on many topics . . . appears not to understand originalism and not to have made any effort to understand it. No originalist thinks that there is a "single definitive meaning" of any word. All originalists think that the meaning of any word is "variable and contingent" — that is, that it depends on context. The question of the original public meaning of the word "meretricious" in Alito's concurrence is necessarily a question of its meaning in the context in which it was used — that is, in a Supreme Court opinion, with reference to an opposing legal argument, by a careful and dignified user of legal language.
The Alito example illustrates the general problem with pure semantic meaning (or literal meaning)–such meaning is sparse. Originalists are especially concerned with contextual disambiguation provided by context. It is almost the signature move of applied originalism. So it is especially disheartening to see such an elementary misunderstanding of originalism. I have no wish to pile on. Blogging frequently takes place in real time, and I have surely made my share of elementary mistakes. Perhaps the author that is the target of Ramsey's post would have put things differently with just a bit of reflection.