Language use is a game of hide-and-seek with coy teasing laughing fairy words. They flit about your head but then dart away whenever you want to use them. Even if you catch them they will only wriggle free again. They are lively and delightful but they can't sit still long enough to mean anything.
(To write with them you must be patient, you must be coaxing. You cannot give them orders; they will only scowl and fly away. But if you sing to them then sometimes they will waltz for you. Then afterwards when they are tired, they will alight soft-footed on your shoulders and nuzzle up against your neck.)
Sometimes people grow frustrated with words: they are capricious, unreliable. These people put up great nets to catch words in. The goal is to tranquilize them, pacify them, so that they will finally just hold still. You must understand: when words stop squirming they can be made useful. They can be lashed together into any shape. They can even be tied into bundles, then crammed into cardboard boxes and shipped across centuries.
Their proponents say: "See how efficient they are! They mean today what they meant ten years ago, and they will mean the same in another twenty. This is the way of the future. This is modern industry at its best."
But as I look at them lying still I note their waxy skin, their dull eyes. They cannot fly anymore for their wings have been clipped. It is said they have a longer shelf life, but to what end? Is the only purpose of language to ship more meaning at a cheaper cost?
It is true that words in the wild are inefficient, that they are not optimized. But I find it delightful to watch them dance.
I had a chat with Oliver the other day about prescriptivism vs. the other ism that is the opposite of prescriptivism. It was a good time. We should have one sometime.
ReplyDeleteOh, indeed? What did you two say about it?
ReplyDelete(The other one is descriptivism.)
Oliver said he was more prescriptivist than descriptivist, but after discussing it turned out he was more descriptivist, but he was against people trying to sound smart and fancy by using "whom" etc. and using them wrong.
ReplyDeleteHe was, however, okay with people being less than grammatically perfect in everyday speech, such as the use of "Me and bob are going to the store."
I think you can be ideologically descriptivist and still think some constructions are more aesthetically pleasant, or even more politically desirable, than others. This is not the same as thinking they oughtn't exist.
ReplyDelete