Between You and I, the English language is, like, Awesome!
Published in Marietta Daily Journal Jan. 15, 2017
Awesome, indeed! Were it not, the English language could not
have withstood so much abuse and manipulation since the Angles introduced it to
Julius Caesar’s “Brittania” around 450 AD.
But let’s not be too hard on
ourselves, especially on teenagers, when it comes to what we call abuse. I realize that schools (and parents, please!)
must foster Standard English. No standard
at all equals linguistic chaos. In all
things we need standards. But language
isn’t a matter of absolutism. Language
isn’t a moral issue, except maybe for ugly words which we will address
momentarily.
Language, like dress, is social adaptation. We put it on and take it off. On, when invited to the White House, or when
persnickety Aunt Alma visits, or when sitting for a job interview. Off, when seated at the supper table with
family. We don’t wear coat and tie to
the beach and we don’t wear swim suits to church; well, I have a few guy
friends who may as well.
Anyhow, neither is language like the
U.S. Constitution. The Constitution
isn’t dynamic (changing). It is static
(at rest). The Constitution means what
the Constitution writers meant. But
words don’t necessarily mean what their inventors or first users meant. “Tyrant” first meant ruler, but because of so
many evil rulers, tyrant came to mean evil ruler or autocrat. “Rhetoric” originally meant the art of
speaking. Today it means hot air.
This is not to say that word choices
don’t matter. The young man who said to
his sweetheart, “Your face would stop a clock,” when he meant to say, “Your
face is timeless,” probably didn’t make it all the way to the altar with
her. He would have fared better with the
advice of Mark Twain, “Always use the right word and not its second cousin.”
Using the right word is a national
problem these days. Social and political
pressure is causing us to call things everything but what they really are. Educators, not politicians, are the chiefest
of sinners in this area. For instance,
what in the world is a paradigm? “Para”
seems always to be positive: paradise, parallel, paramedic, but paradigm? To me, the word is just too fluecy. If they were alive, Mark Twain and Will
Rogers would die at the sound of it.
Actually,
language change is not proceeding at the fast rate that it did as recently as
two centuries ago. Noah Webster slowed
change by suggesting we spell and define words a particular way. Attempting to be descriptive and not prescriptive,
Webster sought initially to inform his homeschooled children on how Americans
were using the language. His efforts to
simplify the language for a frontier people (in both spelling and definition) caught
on and his description (his dictionary) became the standard. Before Webster came along, there was no
widely recognized standard.
It is amazing but understandable how
celebrities can affect our language.
When President Eisenhower used the word “final-ize,” America’s English
teachers hit the ceiling. Now we will be
“… izeing” every verb in the language, they argued. They were right (“privatize,” “prioritize,”
and that wondrous jewel, “dis-incentivize”).
Most linguists point out that it was CBS anchor Walter Cronkite who
birthed the pronunciation, Ca-RIB-e-un, that in most quarters has displaced
Ca-ra-BE-un. Celebrities are as
influential as we all suspect.
A picture may be worth a thousand
words, but a word is also worth a thousand pictures. This fact is what makes ugly, salacious words
(bathroom humor, etc.) so despicable.
Words being pictures, who wants to see ugly pictures, especially when
they stream from the mouth of a friend or family member who thinks there is no
other way to verbalize? (Oops, sorry about
that, English teachers.)
One definite change in English rules
is the controlled acceptance of the sentence fragment. My wife, who happens to have a degree in
English, hates a fragment of any stripe.
Makes her ill. But I say
fragments do have their place when placed carefully.
The most amazing thing about English
(actually, Angle-ish) is that a nation the size of the state of Alabama gave it
to the world. No amount of imperialism
or colonization could spread English as it has been spread. Spirit, pride, and workability are what spreads
a language. English, for instance, has a
greater richness of synonyms than any other language.
So, I can accept language change,
but spare me of that most atrocious neologism, “dis-remember.” In fact, join me in my crusade to stamp it
out.
Roger Hines
1/7/17
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