Students of language talk about the distinction between de dicto and de re utterances. Petruchio says he is going to marry the richest girl in Padua. Has he figured out who she is? If so, he is speaking de re, because he has a specific woman in mind; if not, he is speaking de dicto, because he still has some research to do.

Much Constitutional debate turns on whether the language in the document is being used de re or de dicto. A example might be "cruel and unusual punishment." If the words are used de re, no punishment in vogue in the late eighteenth century could ever be found to violate the Constitution. But if, over time, popular notions of cruelty evolve, and some punishments become unusual, then a de dicto interpretation would make a form of punishment once tolerated no longer acceptable. The words "cruel" and 'unusual" would not change their meaning, in the way, say, that the meaning of "protest" changed from "promise" to "object" over time; but the things to which those words refer would change.

Alito's brand of originalism defaults to de re. For him, Liberty" means the specific freedoms that people enjoyed when the word was used. The dissenters' view, which I call "de dicto originalism," even if they won't, is that "liberty" means whatever society regards as liberty when a case claiming its infringement arises. I'm inclined to the latter interpretation, but that's as far as I'll go here. Whether liberty, so understood, extends beyond Griswold all the way to Roe is a separate question.