Pontypool and the Meaning of Words Put Very, Very Simply

Words have more power than we give them credit for. They can convince, spread information, ideas, even those that are untrue. We're using them right now. Language is our most important means of communication. It creates control, bond, question and answer. All things which now, more than ever are easier to broadcast. Through radio, television, social media and good old-fashioned word of mouth. 

From the very beginning of the movie with "typo" appearing on screen before the full "Pontypool", we get a sense of the meaning of the movie. A disease that turns people into zombies through words, specifically English words, terms of endearment and rhetorical discourse. But why? Because of truth. Truth and the spread of lies. The spread of misinformation through radio, through television, for the sake of entertainment (even more so now, with social media). This misinformation spreads around as words do, and infects people. It travels fast and possibly changes even more through its spread from person to person like a huge game of broken telephone where the words at the end make no sense. When we understand the context of a word (thus why the infection spread only through the English language) we get infected with it, whether it is true or false. That being the reason why before completely dying, the zombies repeat one word over and over till it is void of meaning. That is why the "cure" to the infection was to redefine and obscure words as we understand them to give them a new meaning. "kill is kiss" (I almost died during this scene, "kill me,") Even still when Grant Mazzy explains the infection to the military, they continue to lie and thus the disease lives on. 

The message being how dangerous the spread of misinformation and misunderstanding is. How easy it is to spin words, spread propaganda, and spread fear. How the media is the enabler of this "disease" that may not turn us into zombies in a literal sense but perhaps in a deeper way. It shows how meaningless words can be even as impactful as they are.