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As a project for school, I am studying the ever-changing nature of language.
And before I go any further, allow me to state that replying to this thread is NOT "doing my homework". I want real people's opinions on this subject to add to my project. I've already done the research and am at the point, as I knew I would be, where to go any further is a matter of opinion. All I am doing here is asking for other peoples opinions.
Language is constantly changing. That is a given. New words are being added, current words are evolving, and old words are being discarded. The same goes for rules of punctuation and spelling. My project is focusing specifically on the definition's of words and concepts, but the other area's also are important. My question is what determines these changes? Or, more accurately, who determines these changes?
My project is based off two articles I read. One supported the opinion that popular usage determines acceptability. "If enough people say it, it becomes accepted." The other article argued that it is the PHD's, the English professors, basically the people who know what they are doing, who determine the acceptability of language. And they do this by teaching it in classes to their successors and writing it into dictionaries. (Think MLA).
What I'm asking for is not only opinions about whether popular usage or the literary elite change the nature of language, but also examples. Words which have been discarded, new words, and most importantly words who's meanings have changed. I say most importantly because that has been the hardest to obtain any real consensus on in my research.
Not only is this a project but it is also an area of great interest to me. Limiting myself to one aspect of this topic has been quite difficult. But as I said, the project is nearly completed, so I'm looking forward to delving into the other aspects of it, and am hoping this thread will help.
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1 If one knows where a word came from and how it got here, then it is a more usefull tool. 2. If the majority of an audience is in agreement, with the speaker, on the meaning of a word, then communication is greatly enhanced.
Horray for using real words correctly!
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If the majority of an audience is in agreement with the speaker using a word correctly, even though one English professor with a dictionary in the room says he's using it completely wrong, is the speaker using the word correctly?
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That depends on the size and the composition of the audience. An unlettered audience may have to be spoken down to. If on the other hand a limited audience knows the orthodox meaning, but has assigned a "new" and less precise meaning, then clarity would be served by using the word as accepted by the larger group.
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Dictionaries aren't written by prescriptivists. They're written to reflect actual usage, though they will often make note of words that are considered improper or non-standard in some way.
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It's Dr Strangelove. I could have been more specific. Allow me to give some examples.
The word Butterfly comes to mind. It makes absolutely no sense. A butterfly looks nothing like butter flying. One can only assume that it originally was something along the lines of 'flutterby', which makes more sense. And yet, we use the word butterfly. Why do we use that word instead of one that makes sense?
There are really endless examples if you think about it. There are always words trying to change. Just the other day on here there was a thread about the difference between 'utilize' and 'use'. To use an extremely contemporary example, look at the word 'blog'. It was originally, I believe, 'weblog'. 10 years ago, no one had heard of a weblog, much less a blog. The word evolved extraordinarily fast, being created out of necessity and then shortened for convenience, and is now acceptable.
Cool. Why is 'cool' used to describe something interesting, or accepted. "Yeah man, it's cool". "That's a cool car you got there". Cool, by its dictionary definition, does not apply to the looks of a car or the acceptability of actions. And yet it is used an extraordinarily often in an enormously varied amount of ways, and people almost always understand what it means.
Am I possibly making myself any clearer? My question is firstly, for the project, what is your opinion on words such as these. Words which are used by the majority of people in contradiction to the dictionary definitions. Basically, who's right? The dictionary or the masses. And secondly, for my own personal interest, what causes words to evolve?
If I'm still being unclear, I apologize, and will try to remedy it in the morning.
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quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: The word Butterfly comes to mind. It makes absolutely no sense. A butterfly looks nothing like butter flying. One can only assume that it originally was something along the lines of 'flutterby', which makes more sense.
First off, this is a folk etymology. It's been butterfly for over a thousand years, and it's botervlieg in Dutch and butterfliege in German, so obviously it's not just the result of a spoonerism.
quote: And yet, we use the word butterfly. Why do we use that word instead of one that makes sense?
Who said that words have to make sense? Almost all of our words are more or less arbitrary combinations of sound. But because we want things to make sense, we come up with things like folk etymologies to explain their origins so that we can feel like there's some sort of order to it all. There isn't.
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Actually, if you think of butter as one who butts, it starts to make a little more sense than what I'm assuming you mean when you say "a butterfly looks nothing like butter flying".
I love, love, love how words change so randomly . My favorite example is the word "pimp". Dictionary.com says pimp means "One who finds customers for a prostitute; a procurer." Nowadays, it's not only a noun, it's an adjective and a verb! Pimp can be used to describe something "cool" . It can also mean to make something better, as in, "pimp my ride!"
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Going back to folk etymology . . . quite a few words originate that way too.
Take bikini: the two peice bathing suit was invented in 1946. Because of its explosive new design, it was named after the Bikini Atoll, where the atomic bomb testing was going on. However, since "bi" is also a prefix meaning "two," eventually people assumed it meant just that. And now we have such things as tankinis and camikinis.
Or hamburger: sailors brought the term "Hamburg Steak" into popular usage, refering to meat prepared the way it was in Hamburg, Germany. However, since "ham" is also a meat (although it has nothing to do with "hamburger"), people started treating it like a prefix as well. And thus we have cheeseburgers, fishburgers, turkeyburgers . . .
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Highly recommended: The Story of English, last tape, if you can get it -- it's about how English mutates in other parts of the world (India, Jamaica, wherever).
I'm not sure if this is where I heard of "cardiac" (Philippines), meaning, "very exciting."
You'll need to check these out in case I get something wrong, but:
Monday, pronounced "Mun-day." The older dictionary says "Mun-dee." I believe this changed as people became literate, and thought they were saying it wrong.
"Between you and I," a mistake generated by too much English class.
"Silly," once meaning "happy." "Villain," once meaning "farmer." "___ from hell": originally, unbelievably bad; now, just somewhat undesirable!
Adaptation from other languages: "kamikaze" (kah-mih-kah-zee), meaning "relating to suicide attack," based on "kamikaze" (kah-mee-kah-zay), meaning "divine wind," specifically the fortuitous wind that blew the Mongol fleet away from Japan when it was trying to attack.
The Hacker's Dictionary (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html ) has not only fun slang, but some explanations of how the slang was developed. Seems lots of organizations develop this. AA ("turn it over," "HP," [Higher Power or God], "stinkin' thinkin'"; Stuart Saves His Family, the movie, uses lots of these).
Words that have been discarded: much about medeival church buildings. At least, I don't think anybody these days calls a parsonage a "manse," and I'm sure they don't refer to the property it's built on as a "gleeb."
SF has interesting things. We used to have death rays, ray guns, etc., then they changed to lasers (from the science community); but the scientists developed "robotics" from SF's "robots."
Lewis Carroll developed some words for nonsense poetry in Alice, and some caught on. "Chortle," for example. As someone pointed out earlier, we adopted from 1984, "doublethink," "Newspeak," "prole," and "Big Brother."
PC has an effect. Seems to me the most common word made into compounds is "man," usually in job descriptions (fireman, policeman, etc.). Some of these fade and are replaced by more PC terms. Others are hard to kill (manhole, doorman, fisherman).
Fun topic. Good luck.
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Dr. Strangelove, this is a topic of great interest to me too. As I'm sure it is with many people here. I'm also taking a class called historical linguistics. We've had some examples that you might like, 'cept I'd hafta go dig them up. When's your assignment due? I have too many midterms this week so I won't be able to get back to you til Saturday-ish. But I would like to.
Speaking of which, yes I know I shouldn't be here. I'm off.
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quote:Originally posted by Amilia: Going back to folk etymology . . . quite a few words originate that way too.
Take bikini: the two peice bathing suit was invented in 1946. Because of its explosive new design, it was named after the Bikini Atoll, where the atomic bomb testing was going on. However, since "bi" is also a prefix meaning "two," eventually people assumed it meant just that. And now we have such things as tankinis and camikinis.
Or hamburger: sailors brought the term "Hamburg Steak" into popular usage, refering to meat prepared the way it was in Hamburg, Germany. However, since "ham" is also a meat (although it has nothing to do with "hamburger"), people started treating it like a prefix as well. And thus we have cheeseburgers, fishburgers, turkeyburgers . . .
Actually, this process is called back-formation. Folk etymology tries to explain where a word came from, while back-formation creates a new word by removing a supposed prefix or suffix (and sometimes replacing it with a new one).
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I predict that within the next few decades the contraction y'all will be considered perfectly acceptable English.
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Y'all is a possibility. It would be replacing an old word, Ye, (Plural of You-familiar) that served a useful porpose. There are several constructs being used now. ie. "you guys", you'se, and the ever popular "all you all".
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lol. mph, hate to break it to ya, but where I'm from, ya'll already is perfectly acceptable.
esl, my assigment is due next week, but as I said, this thread is really more for personal curiosity which has been piqued by the assignment than for specifically my project. If you have something to add, add it, regardless of my project.
Though thanks bunches to Will B, Jon Boy, and Amilia. That's just the type of thing that will fit in perfectly. On a technical note, if I use any of this information in my project, should I cite it and how would I go about that?
For my personal interest, I especially like words which authors made up and have become acceptable. I knew Lewis Carrol was quite prolific at that, but are there any other famous instances people are aware of? What about Aasimov? Are there any words which he has coined? I vaguely remember someone telling me that the word "robot" actually originated with him, but I'm not sure about that.
Yes, 'pimp' is a great example of evolving definitions. I already have that one in my project. I remember being called a pimp for the first time and having too look it up. Ah, good times, good times.
Another interesting thing which I've thought about in the past is the concepts which go behind certain phrases that are recognized rather than the actual phrase. "You're welcome" was what got me thinking about that. Everyone says it, but how often do people actually think about what the words mean. The concept of it being the polite and correct response to "Thank you" is there, but people say it automatically, not actually thinking "You are welcome to _____ whenever you want". Or then again, maybe that's just me.
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Talk about head exploding! One girl asked me last summer why we say in English "you're welcome" - where are we welcoming people to? I had to think on my feet for a while there. Posts: 2762 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Welcome comes from an Old English compound meaning roughly "desired guest" or "pleasing guest." This then became used as a verb, adjective, and interjection with senses like "to treat someone as a pleasing guest" or "we receive you as a pleasing guest" and so forth.
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I know the language changes and will continue to change, but I do think it's important to have those "English Professors" who keep reminding us of the proper usage for words. Otherwise we're going to end up with a whole class of people who can't read books more than about 20 years old. Some of my favorite books are C.S. Lewis's books, which use language much differently than we do now; and I'm having to stop and explain words to my kids as I read. But if I didn't, would they grow up unable to understand the earlier works?
And "manse" reminds me of Anne of Green Gables, where that word was used. It's fine to change meanings as long as people keep reading, so they understand the original meanings. But so few read anymore ... and as the language changes, their kids and grandkids won't even have the option of reading the old books.
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My oldest child surprised me one day, when she was in elementary school, by asking if there was any way she could learn "Old English". I told her that someday she might have the opportunity to study German. That would help. She might also attend a University where "Old English" was offered as a subject. Then I asked her why she wanted to know. She answered that she wanted to be able to read Tom Sawyer.
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You may want to consider the more recent attempts at forcing words into new meanings, as practiced by politicians and those with political goals. Most specifically, worlds like "Liberal" "ID" "Racist" "WMD" and such that are either created or redefined by people for political reasons.
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quote:On a technical note, if I use any of this information in my project, should I cite it and how would I go about that?
Yes, it is always good to cite your sources. That is how you avoid plagerism and how your readers know that you are not just making stuff up off the top of your head. How you should cite it depends on what style guide your teacher wants. If he has no preference, just choose a style and use it consistantly throughout your paper. Several different internet citation styles can be found here.
That said, I am not sure I personally am the most authoritative source for you to cite. You may want to verify my information and cite that.
quote:What about Aasimov? Are there any words which he has coined? I vaguely remember someone telling me that the word "robot" actually originated with him, but I'm not sure about that.
"Robot" was actually coined by Czechoslovakian playwrite Karel Capek in his 1920 play R.U.R. According to this site, "The word 'robot' comes from the Czech word robota, which means 'drudgery' or 'servitude'; a robotnik is a serf who performs menial labor." Incidentally, "robota" means "work" in Russian as well. . . .
Oh, and do you have access to the OED? This is a wonderful resource with etymologies and literary quotes showing how the word has been used over time. Check with your library; they may have either the print version or a subscription to the electronic version.
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JB - it's still a mental leap from there to the formulaic "You're welcome," particularly for a speaker of a language whose response to "Thank you" is not even remotely similar. But we made the leap. Posts: 2762 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:Though thanks bunches to Will B, Jon Boy, and Amilia. That's just the type of thing that will fit in perfectly. On a technical note, if I use any of this information in my project, should I cite it and how would I go about that?
At the risk of confusing non-native speakers: you're welcome!
You may mean citation, or thanks. Thanks wouldn't typical in a school project, but I see it in novels or technical papers sometimes, at the end. "I want to thank Hatrack River, IBM, and John Doe for invaluable assistance; and Lassie, for saving my life when I was three."
Citation: check out the citation standard you're using, which is probably MLA. The source wouldn't be us, but wherever we got it from (if you can find it!). It is possible to cite something somebody told you (see MLA again), but you'd do that for things that that person had unique knowledge of, not for things available elsewhere.
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I'm not sure that either popular usage or the approval of an academic elite is really a good authority. On one hand, the MLA has no more objective authority to say that the word 'ain't' isn't legitimate than I do to say that it is. On the other hand, it drives me nuts to see you using apostrophes in plurals, and I want to be able to condemn you for it:
quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: My project is focusing specifically on the definition's of words and concepts, but the other area's also are important.
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Well, I can point out the obvious. "Gay" is a word that has come to mean almost exclusively that for which it was originally a euphemism. I defy you to find anyone under the age of 70 who thinks "happy" or "carefree" when they hear the sentence, "I am gay".
quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: For my personal interest, I especially like words which authors made up and have become acceptable. I knew Lewis Carrol was quite prolific at that, but are there any other famous instances people are aware of?
I heard somewhere that Dr. Suess made up the word "nerd" Does anyone know if that is true or not?
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Other than "I am gay"/"he is gay"/etc and "gay lifestyle", the word still retains its original meaning. Of course, the obvious joking tends to follow eg "don we now our gay apparel", but in that particular case the pun is also inregard to TheGodfather.
SF writer JohnBrunner created the computer-related meanings of worm, macro, surf, and a few others in '75s TheShockwaveRider. And yep, surf came from the protagonist's comment "...learn to surf the [information] shockwave." -- and not as a pun on Cerf, nor coined by JeanArmourPolly in '92 -- despite the many many misguided "history"s on the Web.
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You can also try to find out why some languages did NOT change that much in time. What are the differences? Compare for example the English language and Islandic.
Some literature on Diachronic Linguistics: Literature on Historical Phonology: Barber, Charles. 1993. The English Language: A Historical Introduction. Cambridge:CUP
Lass, Roger. 1987. The Shape of English: Structure and History. London&Melbourne: Dent&Sons: 121-136
Synchronic Linguistics: If you haven't done that, yet, best have a look at the most important types of word formation, such as - compounding (steam-boat, walk-man) - conversion (the thread, noun - to thread, verb) - clipping (professor - prof) - blends (smoke+fog= smog) - backformation (donate comes from donation) - acronyms (U.K. instead of United Kingdom) - coinage (product names, used as words; to hoover)
Those types explain most changes in everyday language... at least the "how". Nevertheless, to find a sufficient answer to the "why",... GOOD LUCK!
P.S.: I wonder why it is possible, that one says "I second XY", "I third XY" etc. Is that "clipping" on syntactical level?
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Another consideration you may want to recognize is the function of "anchors" that hold the language firm and prevent rapid change. Classic examples are Don Quijote for the Spanish language, and the Gutenberg bible for German. The King James Bible served that function for English, as did the Webster Dictonary for "American English" Before these anchors were in place the referenced languages were in a state of flux. Universal access to electronic media may have put us into another "state of flux" now.
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Along with anchors, you should consider major world events that cause changes in language. For instance, English has basically had three different phases, all three were preceded by major events. Old English was basically Swedish/Norwegian mingled with the ancient Celtic and Gaelic languages that were prominent in the area. It made the next shift shortly after the invasion of William the Conquerer, when the French language began influencing the languages of commoners. An example of this is that we call live cattle cows (Gaelic roots), and cooked cow's meat is beef (French roots). Only the French nobles in England ate cooked cow, since the commoners found far too much use for them to consider using them for food (pulling carts and plows and for milk). In order to get that cooked cow, the nobles would request beuf, since they rarely if ever spoke English, and the servants absorbed it into their speach. The shift from middle English (French influenced Gaelic) to modern English (What we speak now) occured in less than 200 years. The major solidifacation of English occured when Caxton began printing books in English in 1471. From that time until 1611, when the King James Bible was first printed, the Language changed very little. The language itself really hasn't changed much since then. The language has not changed much since then. Most words still mean the same thing. The meaning of some phrases changed drastically in meaning(By and by, for example, which used to mean eventually but now means right away), new words have been introduced, and spelling has changed (the dictionary standardized spelling, as it was highly fluid before then), but it is still possible to understand works written in the late 1400s-early 1500s.
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King Charles the Second described ChristopherWren's new cathedral (St.Paul's) as awful, artificial, and pompous; meaning awful: filling with awe artificial: demonstrating the highest level of human ingenuity pompous: kingly, majestic Which ain't quite the associations we make with those words.
quote:Other than "I am gay"/"he is gay"/etc and "gay lifestyle", the word still retains its original meaning.
Sure, it retains that meaning in the dictionary, but that meaning is almost never intended in contemporary usage. Almost no one says "We had such a gay time" anymore. We'd say "We had a great time". Practically all usage of this word meaning "happy" or "pleasant" has been replaced with some other word. If present trends continue, I suspect it won't be too long before the qualifier "rare" or "archaic" is added to the once-primary meaning of the word.
Similarly, the word "faggot" still retains its original meaning, but is almost never used in that way, at least not in American English.
Boris, I've heard the field vs table explanation of "cow/beef" before, but I've also heard some criticism of it. At any rate, there's probably more to it than you state (or maybe less to it). For instance, the same dichotomy exists with "pig/pork", and "calf/veal", as well as "fowl/poultry", but surely it was common for peasants to eat some of these.
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If your Thesaurus is deep enough you could probably find a Latin (Norman) and a German (Old English) cognate for everything. The domestic ones seem to be the most commonly used, and it is still likely that the lord-servant explaination fits.
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quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: If the majority of an audience is in agreement with the speaker using a word correctly, even though one English professor with a dictionary in the room says he's using it completely wrong, is the speaker using the word correctly?
Depends on the context. If you are speaking to a classroom of students and teachers, then no.
Take a look at street slang. Most of middle american has trouble understanding it at all, but people who were raised in the areas understand it completely. It has almost become a dielect of it's own, it has morphed so much.
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: Along with anchors, you should consider major world events that cause changes in language. For instance, English has basically had three different phases, all three were preceded by major events. Old English was basically Swedish/Norwegian mingled with the ancient Celtic and Gaelic languages that were prominent in the area. It made the next shift shortly after the invasion of William the Conquerer, when the French language began influencing the languages of commoners. An example of this is that we call live cattle cows (Gaelic roots), and cooked cow's meat is beef (French roots). Only the French nobles in England ate cooked cow, since the commoners found far too much use for them to consider using them for food (pulling carts and plows and for milk). In order to get that cooked cow, the nobles would request beuf, since they rarely if ever spoke English, and the servants absorbed it into their speach. The shift from middle English (French influenced Gaelic) to modern English (What we speak now) occured in less than 200 years. The major solidifacation of English occured when Caxton began printing books in English in 1471. From that time until 1611, when the King James Bible was first printed, the Language changed very little. The language itself really hasn't changed much since then. The language has not changed much since then. Most words still mean the same thing. The meaning of some phrases changed drastically in meaning(By and by, for example, which used to mean eventually but now means right away), new words have been introduced, and spelling has changed (the dictionary standardized spelling, as it was highly fluid before then), but it is still possible to understand works written in the late 1400s-early 1500s.
No offense, but a lot of this is inaccurate. First of all, Old English was neither Norse or Celtic. It started as a variety of West Germanic closely related to the ancestors of Dutch and Low Saxon. There is practically zero influence from the original Celtic inhabitants. In late Old English, Norse raiders and settlers moved into northeast England and subsequently started to influence the language.
Then of course the French-speaking Normans came and conquered England. The commoners still spoke English, but the nobles spoke French (and learned English, too). The field/stable pairs do come from the English and French names of animals, but not because the English didn't eat them. The dichotomy was originally not as clear cut, either. The French words were often used to refer to live animals, while the English (not Gaelic) words were often used to refer to the flesh of the animals.
I believe you have the meanings of "by and by" reversed. It originally meant "in order of succession" or "immediately" and then came to mean "soon" or "eventually." This is actually a rather common progression; in Old English sóna ("soon") meant "now" or "immediately" and has gradually come to mean "in the near future."
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Sometimes the German-French words both were good to eat. Bacon and Ham come to mind. Here it may be a price diferential involved. When you start putting the languages into groups, English is a "Low German" dialect. Most English speakers can understand Dutch if they listen closely.
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Well, understand some Dutch, anyway. There's a big enough difference in vocabulary that a regular English speaker wouldn't be able to get all of it.
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My mother served an LDS mission in France, and speaks French. My father served in Belgium and speaks Flemish (Dutch). In order to brush up their language skills, sometimes they will read the French and Dutch versions of the Book of Mormon during family scripture study. The rest of us are supposed to follow along in English when it is their turn to read. One of my brothers can understand what my dad is reading without having to read along. I can't. Maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough.
I also cannot understand spoken French, but can usually read enough of written French to get the gist. This is only because of the great similarity of many English words to their French roots.
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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So I finally did my presentation the other day (the teacher ttttttaaaaaaakkkkkeeeessss hhhhhhiiiissssss tttttttiiiiiimmmmeeeee). It went quite well. Ended up taking the whole class period. A few people actually showed real interest and enthusiasm when discussing it, which is weird because the only time people show interest or enthusiasm in that class is when it's in an argument. But they weren't even arguing! It was great.
So thank you all for your help. Once again, Hatrack has proved invaluable.
Special thanks to aspectre. I needed a visual and I ended up printing out a picture of St. Paul's and using the description you gave me. :-)
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. It can also mean to make something better, as in, "pimp my ride!" 
