Language as techonology and the possibilities of English as a modifiable 'tool'

I tend to get a little bent out of shape when I hear South African radio and TV presenters hacking the English language to pieces with mispronounced words and train smashed sentences!

However, I do admit that this nothing more than snobbery on my part. In truth, language is, at some levels at least, nothing more than a tool. It is intended to facilitate communication, which in turn has the intention of facilitating progress and development (whether soft development such as relationships, or structured development such as building and manufacturing things).

Perhaps language should be a little more flexible and contextual in order for it to be useful in varied contexts. Conversely, there does need to be enough common ground among the contextual applications of a language for there to be sufficient shared meaning to make the language useful.

I found this post quite interesting... As usual, it is from boingboing....

Here's a stirring Boston Globe op-ed from master lexicographer Erin McKean, presenting the humane 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.

Chillax (via Oblomovka)

Uthina nathi my china's, uthetha nthoni majita? Is die taal for hackery of nie?