Say What?

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible.    --George Orwell

Arrogant?


"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks."


This, of course, is as true as true can be. And nothing is ever "his" fault, so that not only can he fail and give to drink, he can be driven to drink by the outrageous behaviour of others...like when we say, "You're fired, Rummy."


"It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."


Now wait a minute.


The English language is as fluid as blood coursing through our veins given to pick up the detritus of cellular life and cart it away, and to deposit fresh oxygen to replenish the same cells as it passes by. The blood is a language, an exchanger of "information,"  that while doing so, doesn't degrade the system it services, but enhances it. The surrounding cells change as needed, and therefore, too, does the language, the blood.


So English, as a language, that is, a handy way to exchange ideas, arguments, assertions, or even memes (*gag), stays surrounded by, well, us, a society that quickly changes and evolves (and devolves) very quickly these days. So it becomes necessary for language to change right along with us, society.


It doesn't mean we're foolish when we "weed eat" the mailbox post, it means we have over come a handful of words that would mean the same thing. It isn't ugly, it is inevitable, and in some respects, even accurate. 


"Oh, honey, I'm all sweaty because I just trimmed the grass around the mailbox post with a two-cycle-engined, rotary-headed, string-bladed trimmer that resembles the type patented by the WeedEater Corporation."


Adapting language to fit extant needs is, of course, nothing new, but decrying the act of doing so as slovenly smacks of arrogance. I'm all for adapting language into more manageable forms.


Reminds me of my first and last Latin professor who responded to my question, "Why doesn't anyone speak Latin anymore?" with a wry smile and raised eyebrow and the swift reply, "Who says we aren't?" Well, indeed, I reckon we are!


So letting a language follow its course, to oxbow slowly, or run roughshod through a tight valley is only natural and only crabbed about when it suits pontificating authors...perhaps anyway.


"The point is that the process is reversible."


Which is true, of course, but how many people know that aqua bonum est?  Where would G. Orwell have our foolish society stop the cleansing backtrack towards enlightenment? Until we're conjugating Latin verbs and forgetting everything we know about syntax? No, of course not, but he should have remembered that language is a dynamic system given to change, has to change, to keep pace with a people that are no more foolish (though maybe not much smarter) than those before us.


After all, his masterwork, 1984, has given us many shortcuts in language that are as mainstream as my pet project word "alot" will be, some day, when the grammar nazis lower their standards!
(That's a pun, by the way.)