Comments on: Don’t Mind Your Language…

By: HGJD

HGJD — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:21:59 +0000

Here’s a controversial comparison that I thought I’d share with you.
Language evolves like nature does. To endeavor to stop language from changing is narrow-minded and pedantic, and you rightly rail against it. But as nature changes, and some species become extinct (as some words do all the time), pedantry is suddenly a force for good, and intervention in the course of things is encouraged by you and me. To use an edited quote from your wonderful essay: ‘Imagine if we had the same environment, fabulous as it was, as the Trojans? Imagine if the flora, fauna and climate was always the same as when the Neanderthal roamed. Superficially appealing as an idea for about five seconds, but horrifying the more you think about it.’
“Surely,” a reasonable man says, “one cannot regard the mass-extinction of animals as the natural course? It is the result of human wrong-doing and must be stopped by responsable human action.”
Very true, but does the same not apply to language? Most of its development is the result of people making mistakes, and like the massive impact modern technology has on the environment, that technology, globalisation and the omnipresence of the English tongue has an unprecedented impact on the languages of the world.
Upon realising the feeling of indignation arising from the disappearance of a species and the indignation felt when confronted with wonderful words becoming redundant, I found myself asking three questions: “Should I oppose all acts of wildlife preservation?” “Should I become one of those hated pedants?” and “Why should I be consistent in my opinions?”
There is always the fourth option, namely finding my comparison ridiculous and give no further thought to it.
Goodnight, all.

By: HGJD

HGJD — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:25:19 +0000

As always, you are quite right, dear Mr. Fry, but I can’t help but point out what I believe is the importance of those blasted pedants. Language has to change and is continuously changing. Pedants never succeed in stopping it, but they do manage to slow that process down. Maybe it’s an exaggeration of me, but I’d hate to see grandparents and grandchildren unable to communicate with each other.
Secondly, I think it’s important that the teachers in schools are a bit pedantic. Not so everyone holds the same static language, but so young people can dress their language up for a job interview. Can you imagine a generation let loose linguistically? Of course they would possess a sound, well-crafted language, but they would be bereft of a formal one.
Also, when learning a foreign language, the illusion of uniformity is a very convenient one. That’s an illusion that the pedants create.
But that’s just a little footnote I’d like to add. I immensely enjoy hearing you ‘veer all over the shop’ in this lovely podgram.

By: Metaphorest

Metaphorest — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:39:33 +0000

No to pedantry – yay to play! Stephen’s oh so eloquent ramblings part-inspired me to write this gibbering wordmess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwxSfy2o4I0 and for that, I am ever debtful.

By: emmaherrod

emmaherrod — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:21:46 +0000

Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. Your ‘ramblings’ are a delight and your own language (part ‘classical ruin’ or not) is so pleasant on the ear. I too could listen again and again.

Thank-you!

By: Chessur Marlowe

Chessur Marlowe — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:44:19 +0000

I love this podcast! It’s absoloutly brilliant. I could listen to it over and over again and never get sick of it.

By: tonywill52

tonywill52 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:53:11 +0000

I say, you can’t know, or hear what you are going to say, unless you can think it first. Surely, thought is the father of language…?

By: Jackie Ikegami

Jackie Ikegami — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:02:37 +0000

YES! YES! YES!

By: Cristobal de Losada

Cristobal de Losada — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:28:25 +0000

I’d like to contribute to the comments on this insightful and most-entertaining blog by quoting a pertinent little essay that graces one of the fora at richard.dawkins.net. I quite like it—mostly because I wrote it myself, I suspect.

On the battle between purists and non-purists… http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?p=1792244#p1792244

Whatever people say, in a way we’re all sticklers! To a great extent it is ingrained in us to stick to arbitrary language rules and to see to it that they’re preserved.

As anyone who has children can attest to, we will automatically and relentlessly correct whatever strikes us as unconventional speech. Just consider how irregular verbs have persisted through the ages. If a child says “I sleeped” or “I thinked”, nobody is going to think “That’s cool and far more logical than ‘slept’ and ‘thought’. Languages are supposed to evolve anyway, so I don’t see the point in correcting him.”

There is probably a good evolutionary reason for this instinctive reflex to correct children and for our interest in observing the prevailing usage in our given environment (such as preventing the hostility that a group might feel towards a person whose behavior is perceived as foreign or unfamiliar, for instance).

The degree of fastidiousness in this matter is usually commensurate with the extent of the knowledge that people have (or think they have) about the conventions, traditions or standards of the language. If, for example, you remark that “disinterested” is not at all the same as “uninterested”, whoever is not aware of the difference might react by thinking or saying “Oh well, get over it, languages are supposed to evolve, after all”. But that very same person would likely react quite differently if the convention being broken were thoroughly familiar to him.

So probably people whose knowledge of the language is limited tend to expedite its evolution the most—at least as far as changes that we may regard as gratuitous or arbitrary are concerned. Now an altogether different type of evolution takes place when a useful neologism is introduced, or when a word acquires a new meaning that enriches our means of expression, or even when a new syntactic twist appears to be more intuitively right or easier to handle than its prior version. I’d say that it’s OK to frown upon the former type of language evolution and generally OK to welcome the latter.

I think a good reason to challenge changes that don’t enrich the language in any way (let alone those that impoverish it) is that the faster the language changes the narrower the period whose literature and written word in general we can easily understand. Wouldn’t it be wholly regrettable if, say, two generations from now Dickens became as difficult as Shakespeare is today (which would mean that Shakespeare would in turn become virtually incomprehensible)? For the same reason, even what could be seen as sensible and useful reforms or developments, such as a more logical spelling, should be very carefully weighed, as a tradeoff is always involved.

On the upside, never before has such a large portion of the population had access to basic education. Then there’s the ever-shrinking world that modern technology brings about (which is likely to impede the development of excessive regionalisms—or even to dilute existing ones—, and to make the “speciation” of languages increasingly improbable). And finally, intrusive but welcome software corrects our spelling as we type, and, when in doubt about standard usage or grammar rules, Google can in seconds elucidate the most intricate linguistic conundrums. All of which should help to keep the language fairly homogeneous and to prevent it from unnecessarily evolving too fast—or is that fastly?

By: Dianski

Dianski — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:51:30 +0000

Such wise ponderings Stephen. You are one of the things I miss about England. As a Brit who has lived in Italy for the last 10 years (returning home less as time goes by) my spoken English is not evolving to keep up with the times. When I visit Tngland or even sites like the BBC I find that a lot of new words and phrases are lost on me…I think I was one of the last people to find out what ‘chav’ means… only because my kids told me!

I completely agree that language is a living organism and that you should adapt and keep up to date. I love my mother tongue (lovely phrase) language but I fear my English has deteriorated (as has my spelling) and I don’t even speak great Italian because my Italian husband prefers to speak English… I live in a linguistic twilight zone…and have fallen prey to the Anglicization of Italian words and vice versa…oh dear…not much hope for me….and to think I was a Lit grad once upon a time…!

Yours linguistically frustrated but a great lover of the sumptuousness of language!

Dianski

By: vaingloria

vaingloria — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:41:20 +0000

Yes,a totally enjoyable read, as ever. How delightful to hear the English language being celebrated and exemplified in such a glorious and delicious way.