American English Continues Its Descent
Comments: 13
Ian Garrick Mason in The Christian Science Monitor looks at a new book on “the degradation of language and music and why we should, like, care.”
“Doing Our Own Thing” is a book about the state of the English language in modern America, and John McWhorter, a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, is not happy.
Consider this: On the field of the Battle of Gettysburg, the orator Edward Everett spoke eloquently for two hours to an audience of attentive townspeople, and Abraham Lincoln delivered his subsequent and vastly more famous speech, which concluded, “That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
Today, that high English has decayed to the fragmented, colloquial style of President George W. Bush: “We have our marching orders, my fellow Americans. Let’s roll.”
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Posted to General Rants • 2003.10.23 (Thu) • 08:57
Comments
Posted by Matthew Aaron 2003.10.23, 15:19
I disagree. I think the English language is continuing to e evolve. It always has and always will reflect the society that utilizes it.
I agree that language has taken a turn for the worse in some regards, and that to hear the sort of language that graced the Gettysberg Address on a regular basis would be tremendous, but not all Americans spoke so eloquently in years past. Slang is no new invention.
Using US President George Bush as an example isn’t totally fair either. “We have our marching orders, my fellow Americans. Let’s roll,” is as effective a rallying cry in our day and age as was Lincoln’s conclusion in his. Keep in mind, as well, the speaker and the audience.
The preservation of language is incredibly important. I believe it’s up to each and every one of us, however, to do our best and, to a certain degree, roll with the punches while maintaining style and eloquence.
Posted by Matthew Aaron 2003.10.23, 15:21
Gettysburg, I mean. Oh the irony.
Posted by Björn Lindström 2003.10.23, 18:20
I recommend that you (and Mr. Mason) read the few first chapters of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, by David Crystal. It is good to get rid of this kind of misunderstandings about language.
This is nothing other than the infamous golden age theory about language. The truth is that all natural languages are equally expressive. Any comparison of value between different usages, be it in different times or different classes, is completely subjective.
Posted by Ben Hammersley 2003.10.23, 22:41
Keep in mind, as well, the speaker and the audience.That’s what’s so sad. It’s not some football coach trying to inspire a team for the second half, but the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, speaking unto his nation. One might hope that even a modicum of respect for his position, or the people he acts on behalf of, would inspire a phrase that doesn’t sound like it originates from the script of a second rate Jerry Bruckheimer film.
Posted by matthias 2003.10.25, 01:25
I can agree with points on both sides of this discussion, with the possible exception of BL’s assertion that “all natural languages are equally expressive.” Most of my adult life I’ve wanted to believe this and leaned toward believing it based on what I’ve read and experienced. I’m also particularly opposed to any school of thought that might lead us toward discrimination and oppression. It’s very dangerous to start drawing conclusions about the native capacities of speakers of dialects entirely on the basis of, well, they don’t talk as good as us. This kind of discrimination gets used a lot, often unconsciously, against blacks, southerners, blue collar bostonians, etc. Non-television-english speakers, in other words.
But even so. From the history I happen to be reading now (American, 18th century), it seems like most colonial-era Americans had: a bigger vocabulary, a greater capacity to generate complex sentences, and a broader range of rhetorical devices at their disposal (today’s speaker’s seem to make use of just two: the ad hominem and the one-liner). It’s hard not to believe that most people back then were capable of expressing more and expressing it more beautifully and more clearly than, say, any self-educated Kentucky farmboy or Ivy-League-educated Texas cowboy you might find today.
I think the only recourse then, good sirs and madams, is to elevate the standard, and speak to your brethren as you would have them to speak unto you, for no contention is so mighty, no division so broad or deep that we might not bridge it with one well-considered lightning bolt of a word, a single brilliant stroke of genius, condensed and distilled down to one, hot, glowing stone of a word, that will totally, like, blow those fuckers away.
Posted by Zach Harkey 2003.10.25, 13:21
And the word shall be… bootytwap!
Posted by Zach Harkey 2003.10.25, 13:23
And the word shall be… bootytwap!
Posted by nekid 2003.10.26, 02:44
This guy needs to read some Marshal McLuhan.
Posted by John 2003.10.26, 13:33
Remember that political audiences in the past were far different than they are now. Voters consisted primarily of educated white males until the 20th century despite efforts to expand the practical right to vote. And while educated white males still vote in very high percentages, the political audiences now consist of a large slice of the population whom do not all have the education required to understand and digest large sentences with complex vocabulary.
It’s not that people in the 19th century would have been any more likely to understand such things, it was just that the people that couldn’t understand it didn’t really matter that much to politicians.
Plus, modern media has forced things to be more concise… like it or not, the soundbite is the most important tool in modern politics.
Posted by Tim 2003.11.01, 00:33
Read “Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson - he deals with langauge being a moving target and subject to constant change and evolution.
Posted by Tim 2003.11.01, 00:34
Obviously I meant “language”. I should’ve previewed ;)
Posted by Heather M 2003.11.05, 12:10
I’m a writing teacher and an English as a Second Language teacher, and I believe that today that’s the same thing. Written English is another language than spoken English anymore, and it’s one that the average (I stress “average”) American high school graduate no longer knows.
However, I don’t blame the 60’s or the counterculture. Most counterculture denizens were & are frighteningly literate. I think that writing is no longer a survival tool in this visual age; therefore, the spur to learning it (and a spur is neccessary because it’s hard & takes focus & concentration & time & calories expended as work ) has been removed. A visual, nonliterate, stupid asshole like Bush can be president today because he can do it all without having to read or write.
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