The English language is facing destruction

[ToALonelyPeace]

Take my word for it, the English language is facing destruction | The Independent

I will admit I haven't read "Undertones of War", but it doesn't seem too difficult judging from this passage:

Quote

“One morning, dark and liquid and wild, Colonel Harrison and a number of us went off in a lorry to reconnoitre in Ypres proper, and to visit the trenches we were to hold. The sad salient lay under a heavy silence, broken here and there by the ponderous muffled thump of trench mortar shells round the line. We passed big houses, one or two, glimmering whitely, life in death; we found light come by the time that we passed the famous asylum, a red ruin with some buildings and ornaments still surviving over its doorway… There was in the town itself the same strange silence, and the staring pallor of the streets in that daybreak was unlike anything I had known. The Middle Ages had here contrived to lurk, and this was their torture at last. We all felt this, as the tattered picture swung by like accidents of vision; and when we got out of the lorry by the Menin Gate (that unlovely hiatus) we scarcely seemed awake and aware.”

I find it surprising Obama's article had been “lightly edited to be consistent with this (British) newspaper’s house style”.

I'm critical of the lack of interest in nuanced language – or reading in general – but I didn't find the examples used in this particular article compelling. The part about 'space' seemed anal and tedious as I see no issue with many of the examples cited. I'm less concerned about words evolving to gain new definitions, which is exactly how language has evolved, than I am that most people don't read books.

[Justin Isis]

Linguistic prescriptivism is doomed to failure because language is used by actual human beings and constantly evolves to meet fresh needs and circumstances. And it has ALWAYS been employed dishonestly by dishonest politicians and business concerns - this is hardly a new development; Orwell complained about it 70 years ago and plenty of others complained about it going back to classical times.

I'm DESPERATELY glad that people aren't still writing like British human units from 1918. If you're not paying attention to the way language is being used on Facebook, on Twitter, Tinder, Instagram and, possibly most importantly, your spam folder, then you're not really paying attention to English.

Tellingly, he doesn't say ANYTHING about the countless interesting ways English is evolving in places like India, Singapore and Ghana.

[cannibal cop]

Quote

Noam Chomsky, the plain-speaking philosopher and cognitive scientist par excellence, complained to a French newspaper last year that “when I hear words like ‘dialectic’ or ‘hermeneutic’ and other pseudo-profundities, then, like Goering, I reach for my gun”…

HAAAA-HAHAHAHA

Love it.

[SchroedingersDog]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Linguistic prescriptivism is doomed to failure because language is used by actual human beings and constantly evolves to meet fresh needs and circumstances [...] Tellingly, he doesn't say ANYTHING about the countless interesting ways English is evolving in places like India, Singapore and Ghana.

From my experience, many linguists take a different approach to the pidgin languages in such countries. Whereas the different slangs used in the internet tend to be criticized and associated with the decay of the English language, the grammatical flaws that define the set of rules for pidgins are considered proper traits of their respective language. I always thought that this is a side effect of the rise of post-colonial studies in the lingustics, which - although overall desirable - tend to glorify some of their points of interest.

[cannibal cop]

Language and usage change gradually over time, but I don't buy the line that all such change constitutes an "evolution". Change isn't always for the better.

I agree with the article to the extent that the fact teachers find that striking and vivid passage difficult to follow should indeed be cause for concern.

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by SchroedingersDog

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis Linguistic prescriptivism is doomed to failure because language is used by actual human beings and constantly evolves to meet fresh needs and circumstances [...] Tellingly, he doesn't say ANYTHING about the countless interesting ways English is evolving in places like India, Singapore and Ghana. From my experience, many linguists take a different approach to the pidgin languages in such countries. Whereas the different slangs used in the internet tend to be criticized and associated with the decay of the English language, the grammatical flaws that define the set of rules for pidgins are considered proper traits of their respective language. I always thought that this is a side effect of the rise of post-colonial studies in the lingustics, which - although overall desirable - tend to glorify some of their points of interest.

Yeah, and not everyone who types "wer u at?" in a text message is necessarily incapable of parsing Elizabethan drama or writing thinkpieces in the King's English. Code-switching is very real and there's no mention of it in the article, much less anything happening outside the (white) Anglosphere.

The article reeks of i WaS bOrN iN tHe WrOnG gEnErAtIoN reactionary angst. I suppose 'The English Language Is Constantly Changing and Not Always for the Better' would have gained fewer clicks as a headline.

[qcrisp]

I'm afraid I agree with the article. Even journalists, of almost every stripe, who should be setting some kind of example, instead parade their contempt for the English language. It's enough just to look at the headlines of internet articles to discover a complete lack of pith, wit and proofreading, coupled with the mentality of children spoiling for a fight in a playground. Much of this is the influence of the internet itself, of course.


The degeneration in the English-speaking world, within my own lifetime, of conversation, of articulacy and of the ability to think is something that these days I feel viscerally like a chill wind against my skin.


(I'm not saying all the examples the article gives are great. I simply see the same general phenomenon described taking place: the decay of the English language as a symptom of decay in culture, education and thought.)

The rise of anti-intellectualism is terrifying, but this article doesn't articulate such concerns well, and its priorities come across as the same generic backlash against any form of modernity we have seen across the ages. I'd say this right here is an example of a headline lacking wit and going for the gut-level sensationalism typical of the media.