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this loss of meaning in words, of everything moving towards the middle, towards meaninglessness, is not purely a linguistic problem - without those subtle meani
by nqzero 9y ago
this loss of meaning in words, of everything moving towards the middle, towards meaninglessness, is not purely a linguistic problem - without those subtle meanings, english speakers (or at least those whose primary mental processing is in the audio loop) aren't capable of thinking subtly
and that's a huge loss - those meanings, those concepts, are high level abstractions that capture critical aspects of human nature, and without them a people are less self aware and more easily manipulated
orwell foretold the loss of these words, though he envisioned it requiring force - the reality is far darker
- criddell 9y ago> english speakers [...] aren't capable of thinking subtly That's a little hyperbolic. Is there any example where a word changing meaning has left us unable to express something? The meaning of old words change. New words are born. I think it's wonderful.
- dghf 9y ago> Is there any example where a word changing meaning has left us unable to express something? I imagine it rarely or never leaves us unable to express something at all, but it may leave us unable to express it so succinctly. There are, as far as I know, no exact synonyms for "disinterested", "meticulous" and "phenomenal" in the senses in which they were formerly used. We can still express each of those meanings in other ways, but we need a phrase rather than a single word.
- tptacek 9y agoWhat's the sense of "meticulous" that the word has lost? Later This was answered upthread. Thanks!
- tptacek 9y agoPractically every other episode of Lexicon Valley, John McWhorter's linguistics podcast, is about how that's not what's happening. http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley.html http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley.html He has a whole book about it: _ Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)_. Check it out. Not only do languages evolve and change over time (and that's not a symptom of everything moving towards some imagined mushy center), but some of those "changes" are illusory. For instance, a pretty large contingent of people on the Internet seem to believe that English lacks a gender-neutral pronoun, because a group of people in the 19th century made up a rule that "they" must be singular. Since that didn't happen in our lifetime, we assume it to be a core attribute of the language. But it's entirely artificial.