Has the English language degenerated, and what can we do about it?

Oops, sorry all. I meant “verbiage” not verbage. I recognize that may be defined as an insult to the word verbiage. just some trivia if anyone cares.

One man’s degeneration is another man’s evolution. I can’t say that I’m pleased about the lack of correct spelling and the incomprehensible grammar that I see nowadays, but slang words become “real language” all the time. It’s one of the things that English does best, actually.

You know what these words and phrases all have in common?
Eyeball – Puking – Skim Milk – Obscene – Hot Blooded – The Game Is Afoot – Epileptic – Wormhole – Alligator – Household Words

Shakespeare invented them (and more). All the words we use now were once someone’s (possibly slang) invention.

(Oh, and why do we still read the old novelists? Because their value has not diminished, despite the language having moved on. That’s like saying we shouldn’t listen to Grandma’s stories about the Depression when there’s reality TV to watch.)

I think that language always evolves. What we think of as “proper” English is actually “crap slang” in the eyes of people who spoke English 400 years ago. We will always be adding new spellings, pronunciations, and words to English, and those will become the standards. In the 23rd century, the English speakers will be asking why they don’t speak like the people in the 21st century did.

The same is true in any other language. I speak Spanish, and there is a tense called the Vos. It’s used in a few Spanish-speaking countries, and the rest they don’t even use it (if they even know it exists) because it’s too informal and artificial. There was a guy in one of my Spanish classes who used it all the time, and the prof told him he couldn’t use it in his papers or our exams because it wasn’t a universal representation of the Spanish language and he had to use the accepted (and proper) grammar. Anyways the prof ended up saying “maybe in thirty years you’ll be able to use it, but not right now.”

@laureth: So, in your opinion, it’s the content of the novels, as opposed to the language used, which has kept people’s interest in reading them?

ANY language is a living thing, not just English, and any living thing needs to adapt and grow in order to survive. As has already been noted, what is “proper” today was yesterday’s slang and errors. Even today, most people do not speak PROPERLY in their own language. People who do strive to speak with proper grammar, structure,etc. are looked at as “snooty” or “picky”. I think this is just a furthering of the language’s development.

Interesting theory queenzboulevard. It would be interesting if we could transport ourselves 100 years into the future and see how people are speaking (and writing!).

@eponymoushipster: True, yet why, in certain social circles, do people sometimes unconsciously make an extra effort to express their dialogue prowess, especially to strangers? Yet, when we are among friends and family, we speak in a common tongue?

Well, other people’s language may be degenerating, but I love my thesaurus, and I always try to use modern English, but will slip into slang if a story or conversation calls for it.

I’d be happy if people could just figure out how to spell the simple words. I received a mailing the other day that used ‘loose’ when it was supposed to be ‘lose’. I hate that one. It’s almost as bad as using the wrong ‘their’ or the ‘except’ when you mean ‘accept’ or the way people confuse ‘then’ and ‘than’.

I may not be Shakespeare, but at least my use of the language doesn’t involve txt spk, and the abuse of language by using single letters for entire words. Soon we will be scratching pictures in the dirt instead of writing letters. oh wait, that’s how we started, wasn’t it?

@Siren – yes, about the novels. Some themes are just universal and the works are classic. But the language might also be one reason to keep reading old novels, too. Always moving toward the new does not mean that the old is useless. We still study Chaucer and the Beowulf story, for example, because that old archaic language is grandmother to our own. Seeing where one has been is very often helpful.

Because, we know, even subconsciously, that those extra details make us appear more proper. In theory, the Queen of England has her own dialect of English, which the BBC and others were obliged to use it as well (Received Pronunciation). But that’s out the window these days. It was all a put-on. We know that what we hear and how we hear it affects how we perceive others, and we want others to see us in the best light possible.

And, yes, among friends and familiars we speak in an entirely different style. Some languages have this built-in, using Polite and Familiar forms (i.e. Russian, Spanish, French), while others have (as I understand it) entirely different sets of words and phrasings (even letters) for speaking to different groups (i.e. – Japanese).

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” Mark Twain

having said that….

“If every word I said could make you laugh, I’d talk forever…” anon.

IMO Words are precious and I think we are missing out if we don’t try to learn more words and keep old/ancient words in our vocabulary as well as welcoming the new.

@lynneblundell that’s a good point. sometimes, it’s not what you say, but knowing when to shut up. :) I agree we should learn new words and expand, but I don’t think we should be snooty about it.

@laureth: For me personally, regarding historical novels, it’s been a combination of the content and language that has kept my interest.

It also has helped my vocabulary and dialogue too. although I don’t read as much as I used to, doh!

I agree with eponymoushipster’s last comment (and preceding)...interesting name by the way.

@Siren – That is also what I get out of reading novels, the content and language.

I’ve read how Ben Franklin, a printer by trade, wanted to simplify spelling by making each letter have one sound and revising from there. It didn’t catch on, although Americans have dropped the u in words like “colour” and use z where the British would use s, as in “organise.”

Every generation complains that the one after it is destroying the language, but that’s probably not the case. Language evolves. Whaddya gonna do, huh?

ha ha…good point, aprilsimnel

William Shakespeare, arguably one of the English language’s greatest writers, had a vocabulary of over 50,000 words (that is if you count all the different words in all his plays there are 50,000+ different words). However around 30,000 of those words are spelling variations on the other 20,000. Or, to put it another way his spelling was pretty lax. A fine example of this is his name. There are something like 6 (can’t remember the exact number) known examples of his signature and not one has the same spelling of Shakespeare. Infact, as far as we know he never used the spelling Shakespeare.

dnt wrry 2 much bout it. Shit I’m not that good at this txtspk or whatever it’s called.

I don’t see language as something “holy”. It’s a tool. If it does change, it’s simply because it is more useful that way. I obviously stick to the “proper” British English I was taught at school 30 years ago, and frown not only at people mixing up “whose” and “who’s” but even the american spelling of words such as “traveled” and “favor”. But at the same time I recognise (NOT “recognize”) that this is how a language moves forward, and, being a living thing, it will “degenerate” in the same way our body does, with wrinkles that just make it look all the wiser.

@Jack79, If my language gets wrinkled, I’m thinking Botox injections.

I think that’s what they call dialects, right? Or, am I confused. I am already confused about having to face-lift my dialogue. It’s come to this has it people??

I would have to say that from all the different influences that someone can receive (peers, music, books, video games?) regarding the English language, I would think that someone could certainly gravitate away from using mainstream vocabularies and word usages in everyday conversations.

That’s not to say they are wrong but it might appear questionable to some that believe some kind of standard should be in place where good English is spoken on a regular basis. This would be an opinion based view and it is only that. I would say that people need to keep an open mind and accept constant change because that is always inevitable in any language. Maybe even more so being that English has been called the hardest language to learn because of so many variations in definitions and contexts.

As far as the problems of the degeration of the English language on a whole, I think good practices to get into or maintain would be reading, writing, doing crossword puzzles, or any other activity that might help someone to develop and/or further enhance a good working vocabulary.

It is not just language. In our world of mass production, it is hard to find grace or style anywhere. Found objects are now regarded as art and some of what goes by the name of poetry is just plain awful. The suburbs have to be some of the ugliest places imaginable, with endless cookie cutter housing developments, highways and shopping malls. Sometimes I just feel like running off into the woods, which are getting harder and harder to find.

This argument finds itself on fluther now and again and I find it just ridiculous. I think it boils down to two things for me.

1. People who are hung up on how someone says something as apposed what they are saying. I make my living as an interpreter and I can assure you that how someone says something is secondary to what they are saying. If I were to say (because Shakespeare has come up so much on this thread)
2 b or not 2 b, dat iz da ?
Does it make the phrase any less profound? I would argue no. It has the same meaning, the same words, nothing has changed except for how it was said. Of course this is a dramatic example, and you would probably have to call into question why I would choose to say it that way, but again, that was an extreme.

2. People not recognizing that the language they speak/write now is a bastardization of the language spoken a few generations back. This has already been said several times in this thread but I though I would give some examples of how wrong all of our English on this thread is.

We are using the Roman alphabet. How wrong is that? English is a Germanic language and was originally written in futhorc. But thanks to some christian missionaries we lost that.

We’ve all but lost our case structer (ie. Nominative, accusative, genitive, dative). This is a key one, because I can assure you that English speakers of that time would consider us “lazy” for having dropped cases.

Middle English had two “you” pronouns. thou (you singular), ye (you plural). Also a neuter third person, hit. And don’t forget, like modern German, English used to have three genders. This would also be considered “lazy”.

Most youth don’t give a shit. They just do what they do, and if it communicates what they want to communicate, they are happy. They wonder about the fuss their elders make, and maybe that makes some of them learn how to talk to us. You know how we used to say, “I ain’t gonna say ain’t because ain’t ain’t in the dictionary.” Too bad parents of the world. Ain’t has been in the dictionary for a while. And it won’t be long before CU l8r is also in the dictionary. And Microsoft Word will have to radically redesign it’s grammar corrector.

I wonder how OED is going to define ROFLCOPTER.

I wonder if “huh” is in the dictionary

@Siren. After a lengthy search, I found it. Here it is for you.

Huh

–interjection (used as an exclamation of surprise, bewilderment, disbelief, contempt, or interrogation.)

Origin:
1600–10

sigh

Siren, I feel your pain. maybe I should use Bill Clinton as my new avatar

Thanks evelyns_pet_zebra. I like your current avator myself actually. Friendly smile.

Grammar elitists think somehow mastery of good grammar or the English language denotes intelligence. I disagree. It denotes education in that field. There are plenty of people with intelligence on the streets. Intelligent primitives. Some who could not read or write due to various disabilities have risen to prominence.

Throughout school I always scored in the top 1% in reading comprehension. I was always called on to read as young as 10 if the teacher wanted to move through something quickly because I pronounced everything perfectly. Yet I have scored low on grammar.

What’s interesting in regards to grammar, is that there are in most languages, accepted “improper” uses of grammar. I remember reading an article in a Russian-language magazine about how you know you’ve mastered the language when you can use the “improper” phrases properly.

When I taught English and Russian, we compared teaching grammar to spreading mayo on a piece of bread for a sandwich – not too much, but enough to hold the sandwich together.

Maybe that’s a good rule for everyone. :)

@noon – The plural pronoun “you” (ye) is what we now use as regular speech, but it was originally more formal. Think of French, how “tu” is singular or informal (what you would call your friend), and “vous” is plural or formal (what you would call your boss). What makes me smirk is when I read the old-form singular informal pronoun “thou” being used to refer to the Biblical God. People think it’s formal because it’s old fashioned, but it’s really the equivalent of calling God your buddy.

@laureth
I just got a great image of Buddy Christ from Dogma

@eponymoushipster
It is interesting how other languages manage their evolution. Speaking from the experience I have with Portuguese, in my parent lifetime the Portuguese language has had two formal orthographic reforms. The most recent one, obviously not accepted by all, is going to be a huge shift in the spelling of large groups of words so that they can keep up with current pronunciation.

Kood iu djust imadjin if Eenglish wer too doo dthu saem theeng. A spehleeng reeform (dthat haz bin prupoesd several tiems) dthat wood aktoouhlee maek Eenglish fonetik.

@laureth Actually, using the familiar is acceptable with God. I believe it’s used to convey a sense of relationship, like a child and father. In Russian, we use TbI in reference to God.

@Noon what’s weird, is the last part looks like what you’d find in some Olde English writing.

Here’s an interesting question (sub-question): The Romans didn’t put spaces between their words. Does anyone know if this is the case in Gujarati or Hindi or similar languages? I have students who speak those languages, and they tend to run their words together. I was wondering if this a structural holdover from their root language, or just something else altogether.

Language will always evolve over time and for many different reasons, as people have pointed out. But the factors that drive this in a negative direction are countered to some extent by a requirement to maximise expressiveness and precision. Whilst, for example, ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ are often used interchangeably there are enough people who understand the meanings and need to use these words with the correct word senses, that the distinction won’t be lost.

However, the supposed distinction between “uninterested” and “disinterested” does not exist.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disinterested

@morphail I think this is a good illustration of the “is language degenerating” question in microcosm. I wasn’t aware of the complex etymology but it shows how a need for expressiveness and precision can cause word senses to diverge, as well as how other forces can cause them to merge. Or in this case, oscillate wildly as the forces compete.

@ssteward I think this is good illustration of how people who complain about how language is degenerating often don’t have all the facts straight. They complain there is a confusion between “disinterested” and “uninterested”, when in fact there never has been any such confusion.

I’d like to add to my previous comment: I think language is definitely being added to, instead of simply evolving keep the good, bring in the new