Wed 27 Aug 2008
English is a user-modifiable technology
Wednesday, Aug 27th, 2008 at 7:39 pmCategories: Language; Technology; Now
Posted by Administrator
No Comments
“If it seems wordish, use it. No apologies necessary.”
- Erin McKean
Master lexicographer Erin McKean recently published what Boing Boinger Cory Doctorow calls a “case for a dynamic English language in which speakers are allowed to coin neologisms and new usages without grammar tightasses insisting that language is not a user-modifiable technology.”
Whenever I see “not a real word” used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading “I am not confident about my writing” on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an “unreal” word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police? The revocation (as the joke goes) of your poetic license? A public shaming by William Safire? The irony is that most of these words, without the disclaimer, would pass unnoticed by the majority of readers. (In case you noticed cromulent, that was invented in the 1990s for “The Simpsons.”) Writers who hedge their use of unfamiliar, infrequent, or informal words with “I know that’s not a real word,” hoping to distance themselves from criticism, run the risk of creating doubt where perhaps none would have naturally arisen.
- Erin McKean, “Chillax: If it works like a word, just use it”
@ Boston Globe, Aug. 3, 2008: Link.
Via Boing Boing: Link.
I love Cory’s phrase “English is a user-modifiable technology” — it rings true.
“We’re always thinking that we’re much more powerful than we are, because we’re boosted by technological powers that exert a really, really high cost on the environment – a cost that isn’t calculated and that isn’t put into the price of things.”