Tonguing

A Wired editor rails against the dying of the light:

It doesn't matter whether you're reading your local rag, surfing the net or trying to make heads or tails of someone's inane blog -- the quality bar is set lower than ever, which is saying a lot considering it was never set very high to begin with.

But I'll save the critical examination of my profession for another column. Today, I want to talk about one of the byproducts of all this mediocrity. Today I want to talk about the all-out assault on the English language and the role technology plays in that unprovoked and dastardly attack. I especially want to talk about the ways dumbing down the language is not only seen as acceptable, but is tacitly encouraged as the status quo.

Any number of my acquaintances excuse the bad writing and atrocious punctuation that proliferates in e-mail by saying, in essence, "Well, at least people are writing again." Horse droppings. People have never stopped writing, although it's reaching a point where you wish a lot of them would.

The very nature of e-mail (which, along with first cousins IM and text messaging, is an undeniably handy means of chatting) encourages sloppy "penmanship," as it were. Its speed and informality sing a siren song of incompetent communication, a virtual hooker beckoning to the drunken sailor as he staggers along the wharf.

But it's not enough to simply vomit out of your fingers. It's important to say what you mean clearly, correctly and well. It's important to maintain high standards. It's important to think before you write.

I can sympathize but, to quote Elvis Costello, "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused."

The Internet age is certainly taking its toll on the English language (although, I hasten to add, it's taking a toll on the version of the English language I/we grew up with--I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute). Perhaps I'm more picayune than most--I agonize over spelling and punctuation (and capitalization, though everyone else be shiftless) even in Instant Messaging, but, hey, I was an English major and spelling and grammar are the only skills I have! Please don't take them away from me! But I can get sloppy, and if you read this blog I'm sure you'll find a few typos or instances of "creative" sentence construction.

There is an interesting historical comment to be made here, in that it was the advent of printing (in particular, the installation of the first printing press in England by William Caxton in 1476) that more or less standardized the English language in the first place. If new media are undoing what print started--well, insert your own Ludditish comments here.

What we need to be aware of is that English is unique in that it is a living language that really has no codified standards unlike, say, French, in which there is a central academy that constantly monitors the language and decides if and how the language can change. English is constantly changing and evolving--read a book written in the mid-20th century and see if the language matches that of today's books. Then try one from the 19th century, or the 18th century. Then try Shakespeare. (Who, by the way, is estimated by scholars to have coined--that is, made up--more than 2,000 words, many of which have become commonly used "official" English words.) (Here's one for the Eats, Shoots & Leaves fans: even Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence got the "its" and "it's" business confused and inconsistent. So all this is nothing new and is no reflection of basic intellect.) This is why English is such a notoriously difficult language to learn--and I applaud any foreigner who has made the attempt.* Also remember, until the 18th or even 19th century, English was considered a second-rate language anyway--it was a "vulgar" tongue used by the unwashed masses; for serious writers, Latin was the tongue of choice.

One of my favorite writers, Bill Bryson, has a brace of books on the history of the English language (The Mother Tongue and Made in America) that should be required reading for anyone who thinks that English has a carved-in-stone set of spelling and grammar standards.

And let's not forget that people have been making these same complaints about "sloppy" English for decades.

Obviously, we do need some standards in writing and speaking, but for a very prosaic reason: language is about communication. If we're all making up our own language, what does that do to our ability to communicate with others? At the same time, if the language does continue to evolve, and younger people are driving that evolution (as they inevitably are), and they all understand each other, what does that do to those who stubbornly refuse to evolve with it, and their ability to communicate? I understand very few of the abbreviations used in "texting" and Instant Messaging, typically because I find them an abomination--but this means that I don't always get what people are saying to me. Am I shooting myself in the foot with this attitude? Probably. But I'm seeing my own IM behavior evolve--I've even started using those infernal smileys, beginning my long slide to hell.

Language will continue to evolve--as it always has. Those of us who stubbornly cling to some idealized past are just doing ourselves a disservice. Besides, it's better to be amused than disgusted.

Now to carefully proofread this post!

*A couple of years ago, I was sitting in the Albany train station, and a heavily accented Amtrak employee made an announcement about an incoming train. A few seats away, one of those xenophobic types grunted, "If you're gonna live here, why don't you learn the language." Well, actually, the guy had learned the language (and quite well, as far as I could tell), he just had an accent. I was doing the New York Times Crossword Puzzle at the time, and I was tempted to hand it to Mr. Xenophobe and have him finish it for me, seeing as he was apparently Noah Webster. But I valued my life, so I didn't.