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A friend brings up the eternal issue of language change, and the common notion that there is no point in resisting it.
Of course language changes, and that is neither good or bad. The issue is whether this or that particular change improves the language, or harms it. It improves the language if it increases its clarity, or its communicative or expressive power. It debases the language if it reduces its clarity, or its communicative or expressive power.
Nor, contrary to popular belief, especially in the academy, is common usage the true measure of what is or is not acceptable. Were that so, “ain't” would by now be good English. There is expertise in language just as in anything else. It is the usage of the best professional writers and editors (and professional speakers) that is and ought to be authoritative. They are the proven experts at making English clear, communicative, and expressive.
“Gay” is evil because it is meant to deliberately confuse. So is “bright.” So is “gender” meaning sex.
By the same principle, there is nothing wrong with a split infinitive. Clarity does not suffer either way; but not splitting can make a sentence more difficult to say, less euphonious. This is one of Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins—the many wrong things beginning writers are taught in school, which they must later painfully unlearn in order to write well.
As to neologisms, they are great when they fill a real need, a void in the language. They are harmful when there is already a perfectly good word. To multiply words needlessly reduces the language's efficiency.
Worse is to reassign a new meaning to an existing word. This automatically increases ambiguity and reduces clear communication. Hence the special evil of “gay” or “gender” or “bright.”
This is language meant to deceive.
1 comment:
Homosexual has come to have so many negative connotations. There are so many negative colloquialisms used to describe homosexual as well. Is it so wrong that those in the Gay and progressive communities seek to promote the usage of a positive term?
I love the term "bright". Were all so "bright" when we were young. I used to think it was about being smart. Now that I'm old I think of what we were as like shiny, unworn new pennies. "Bright" Works for me.
As to gender, I have always thought that I am a lesbian, trapped in a man's body. I don't tell many people and it's always woke out fine for me. I don't know what gender that makes me. I don't care to much. I do think that everybody should strive to be the person that makes them the happiest they are capable of being, even if that's not so happy. We all have our bad days. I was born with a penis. It didn't come with an instruction booklet. I do whatever I feel like with it. I try and be creative sometimes, sometimes not. I never use it coercively. Too short and easily bruised.
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