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Where Is English Going?


Nosebleed

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I don't know if I agree that a word like "pwnage" is sillier than other words. It's redundant, in the sense that "ownage" already means the same thing and is the same number of letters, but "ownage" itself is useful and concise: a single word to express "domination of an opponent to an embarrassing extent."

 

Because modes of communication are so broad and instantaneous now, we're seeing a much faster evolution of language. I think that has unsettled a lot of people — Including myself. But I've come to realize that, for example, leet speak is no more different from modern textbook English than modern textbook English is from Shakespearean English. I don't think modern English is inferior to old forms of English; I also don't think internet short forms are inferior. If anything, the need for brevity and clarity in typed language is improving language as a whole.

 

Computer age language may leave older forms of language behind and create a short generational gap where communication suffers, but future generations may actually benefit. Studies have shown that people can read an English paragraph with all of the vowels removed and still understand it. That's a lot of letters which aren't contributing a whole lot, implying a language in need of serious pruning.

 

Even the way I'm formally typing all of this out in proper English is more out of habit than because I think this way is superior.

 

u dig?

You can also argue that by simplifying a language just so it can be used to communicate 100% effectively, you lose a lot of that vocabulary variety that made it a rich part of culture and instead just turn it into something akin to the morse code.

You might think it's superfluous, and you're right to some extent, but isn't that diversity what makes a language interesting?

And I know old words still exist and they won't go away or anything, but this modern mentality regarding language (and many other things really) and how easily it should change to suit the whims (maybe lazyness is a better word here) of the masses is a bit saddening in the end.

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And I know old words still exist and they won't go away or anything, but this modern mentality regarding language (and many other things really) and how easily it should change to suit the whims (maybe lazyness is a better word here) of the masses is a bit saddening in the end.

I don't think it's a modern mentality at all - it's just more self-conscious than it used to be.

As much as they'd like it to be so, languages are not made and do not evolve through standardization organisms and old wizards sitting down writing grammatical rules, they merely describe and analyze the inner workings of something that has been shaped through being spoken and through communication of all kinds. And those changes do occur through laziness - slurring of sounds and co.

 

Concerns regarding the decay of language have also pretty much always been commonplace, as far as I know. And it often turns out they were misplaced.

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I don't think it's a modern mentality at all - it's just more self-conscious than it used to be.

As much as they'd like it to be so, languages are not made and do not evolve through standardization organisms and old wizards sitting down writing grammatical rules, they merely describe and analyze the inner workings of something that has been shaped through being spoken and through communication of all kinds. And those changes do occur through laziness - slurring of sounds and co.

 

Concerns regarding the decay of language have also pretty much always been commonplace, as far as I know. And it often turns out they were misplaced.

Please tell that to my bosses that insist we speak in french at my workplace. -.-

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That dictionary has little to do with anything, as far as I know. People reference it, but I don't know why. It obviously has some real problems. I have no respect for the oxford dictionary.

Also I have no idea what you could possibly mean by rare peeps.

In the end, I don't think it matters if it's recorded as a part of the language or not. It exists. If you want to try to make it "official" then you can try, but it doesn't change anything. The culture exists apart from the dictionary, and I think we have enough text records from the last many years for future generations to grasp the language of the time. Though it might be nice for someone who needs to look something up. I don't think we're at risk of losing anything, probably. Modern writers don't write books with the new casual way of talking, right? Hopefully things stay that way. I get enough of the silly talk online

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  • 2 weeks later...

You can also argue that by simplifying a language just so it can be used to communicate 100% effectively, you lose a lot of that vocabulary variety that made it a rich part of culture and instead just turn it into something akin to the morse code.

You might think it's superfluous, and you're right to some extent, but isn't that diversity what makes a language interesting?

And I know old words still exist and they won't go away or anything, but this modern mentality regarding language (and many other things really) and how easily it should change to suit the whims (maybe lazyness is a better word here) of the masses is a bit saddening in the end.

Language has always been and always will be evolved by the masses and for the masses. All of the mannerisms we use today were developed by people to describe situations they were in in their own time period. Trying to fight against it because you think it is juvenile is counterproductive to the growing of culture. We have such rich language not because of some well structured governing body creating words, but rather because the people, the masses themselves made them.

What we are currently seeing is the rapid evolution of language due to break down of social barriers such as distance because of the modern technological advancements. These lack of barriers allow for cultural mixing at a rate unseen of before, and as a result we are seeing the real time evolution of a language that would normally have taken hundreds of years in just a decade.

That said though, I'm seriously wondering why they included redditor and subreddit as official words when they pertain to a specific commercial product. As far as I know, proper nouns aren't carried by dictionaries, and as a result, neither should their derivatives.

Edit: oh right, the thing that actually made me quote your post was the fact that the Morse code example is completely wrong. Morse code is used basically as a translation utility and not as a language. Morse code is akin to binary, and saying we are turning our language into binary makes no sense at all. Plus there is also the fact that Morse code has objectively less information density than any written language, and therefore can only be an extension of and not a shortening of said language.

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Language has always been and always will be evolved by the masses and for the masses. All of the mannerisms we use today were developed by people to describe situations they were in in their own time period. Trying to fight against it because you think it is juvenile is counterproductive to the growing of culture.

 

No, it is a part of the growth of culture in itself.

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