Language Purists versus Language Change
Languages change whether the language prescriptivists like it or not. The purists out there are irritated by the truncation and blending of words, the borrowing from other languages, the use of gender-neutral terms (such as “chair” and “server”) promoted by feminists, etc. This blog would have been a “web log” still if it hadn’t been for the process of language change; and France would have been stuck with “Mademoiselle” for ever (“Au Revoir ‘Mademoiselle’”).
Grammars change with time as well. In English, the levelling of “whom” and “who” is one example; the move from such expressions as “if I were” to “if I was” is another. Those who stick to the old ways may be outed by their language use as illustrated in this popular language joke:
St. Peter (at the Pearly Gates of Heaven): Who is it?
Voice: It is I!
St. Peter: Go to hell, we already have all the English teachers we need!
Language teachers beware!
Posted by May Mikati on 11 March 2012, 4:55 PM
Languages change whether the language prescriptivists like it or not. The purists out there are irritated by the truncation and blending of words, the borrowing from other languages, the use of gender-neutral terms (such as “chair” and “server”) promoted by feminists, etc. This blog would have been a “web log” still if it hadn’t been for the process of language change; and France would have been stuck with “Mademoiselle” for ever (“Au Revoir ‘Mademoiselle’”).
Grammars change with time as well. In English, the levelling of “whom” and “who” is one example; the move from such expressions as “if I were” to “if I was” is another. Those who stick to the old ways may be outed by their language use as illustrated in this popular language joke:
St. Peter (at the Pearly Gates of Heaven): Who is it?
Voice: It is I!
St. Peter: Go to hell, we already have all the English teachers we need!
Language teachers beware!
Posted by May Mikati on 11 March 2012, 4:55 PM
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