“Truth is bitter” is an all too familiar expression. As it seems to me, the expression borrows its validity from an understanding of “bitter” as the opposite of “sweet” — chocolaty, ice-creamy, sweet — as such, the antithesis of comfort and the comfortable.

Many English words and adages ought to be passed through the scrutiny of a renewed gaze if they are to retain in them anything of a life-giving, regenerative meaning.