Growing up, my stepmother was very big on the power of words, and how you can change people's minds based on how you say a thing. She was right, of course... but to my mind, that seemed like protecting myself from this manipulation was more important (and more ethical) than using this knowledge to manipulate other people. For a long time, I'd practice re-writing everything I heard using words with the most negative connotations I could without changing the meaning of the sentence.

"I gave him a job, and his skills and abilities are helping my business do well." vs. "I am profitably exploiting his skills and abilities."

the meaning is essentially the same, but don't say the second one in public. (in my teenage years I tried that, too.. it ended badly.)

Anyhow, I don't spend as much effort on it as I did, but I still think being aware of this sort of thing is an important part of everyone's mental self-defense.