tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post8550620412971401897..comments2023-10-24T17:21:16.565+02:00Comments on Sounds in the Hickory Wind: The Decay of Language Part 1The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-55962595326521472402010-02-19T00:28:05.764+01:002010-02-19T00:28:05.764+01:00@goofy
Thanks for dropping by. this post is the s...@goofy<br /><br />Thanks for dropping by. this post is the start of a series of essays on the subject of 'language decay.' I'm glad that someone finds it worth commenting on.<br /><br />The limits of language are set by the speaker, not by the language istelf. The fact that some people, or perceived groups, do not use language as expressively as they might doesn't mean that language itself is losing communicative possibilities.<br /><br />Many people, usually educated people, worry about this loss of expressive potential whenever they observe others using language in a way that they were taught was not correct. We all have our standard forms, our pet peeves, our deep concerns about changes that will lead to poorer communication, but it really doesn't happen like that. As long as there is language available to us, we will be able to communicate.The Hickory Windhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-12655560634528420062010-02-18T17:30:32.641+01:002010-02-18T17:30:32.641+01:00Crawford's response assumes that changes to sp...Crawford's response assumes that changes to spelling and grammar means a loss of subtlety of expression. This is by no means true. English spelling and grammar have been changing for as long as their was a language called "English", and there is no evidence that we are less or more expressive now than we were, say, 500 years ago.<br /><br />It seems to me that the claim that a language can decay assumes a few things: we know what "decay" means in this context, we know what an undecayed language looks like, we can objectively measure decay, and we can show exactly how decay correlates with loss of expression. Crawford provided some examples of badly written English, but he hasn't provided evidence that changes to spelling and grammar are somehow making English on the whole less expressive. By using English to point out some problems with Brown's letter, he is demonstrating that English is just as expressive as it needs to be.goofyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14760721504519661112noreply@blogger.com