Is Language a Stealth Technology for Influencing People?

I think of, if you like, making language, looking at language very muchin terms of its er ability, or indeed, its purpose, to influence people. I'm going to steal a phrase from your book. In fact, it's got the word steel in it. Anyway, a stealth technology for influencing people. That's what you think language is er so that might surprise some people, because it suggests that there's something going on beneath the surface that's not being made explicit. But actually what we're doing al the time, even if we say, i'm eating some toast, i've got a glass of water on the table, that i'm doing these things not purely