At the time of writing, I am not sure what the meaning of “gas burning” is. Or ‘benching’, “mirroring”, “sealioning” or – a store? – “gray rock”. “Active”, I say, but the world seemed to be speechless, an exercise that has been possible, until five minutes ago.
All of this no longer enters Anthony Burgess’ mind. And not just these “two sides” – why is it always a verb? – but the careful do not stay on top of a word or two. What did “virtue” add to “sanctification”? Who wouldn’t love “snow” in the hands of a poet like Longfellow?
It is a life-changing experience that languages change. But I wonder if English has become as relentless as it is now. If the change were at the level of slang or subculture, it could be just academic. What we have instead is what we always have.
One vector is a strong pushover known as the company, who has never seen a culture that would not give him a peaceful life. China is part of the government. I’m looking for “Similarities, Differences and Integrations” NHS website page, one of the world’s leading employers. To the extent that it can write (beware of “white supresmacy”) and a glossary of “allyship”, “experience” and other medical requirements.
There were two reasons for this type of baloney. One was decorative. The leak of the jar can hit the ear like the white sound of a fridge freezing. Another objection, George Orwell, is that it is a political fraud. Soviet or Nazi, Jesuit or anticlerical, perversion of language is a false tactic of the ruler.
Let me give you a third and most important problem. There is one threat in English as the international lingua franca, and it is not Mandarin. It is not an extension (addition) of translation technologies. That’s the language that comes from bullshit.
The speed and ambiguity of lexicographic changes can confuse English into one thing business language, science and communication cannot exist: confusion. I know native-born Anglophones that fail to follow. For those who learn it as a second language, the amount of errors is the starting point.
Imagine that you are a middle-class English student who wants to relax. You are trying to identify the verb “setting”. A few years ago, self-indulgence and doing something strenuous in a stressful time: cooking was a regular habit. As new as the definition was, it has also evolved into something like “inappropriate promotion”. If I can appreciate Lyndon Johnson and human rights, I put whites in a black story. You can use these words in a newspaper article.
And all of this does not mean, remember, it is similar to what is in your book, where you can move and move an object in the middle of the sky. In some cases, this kind of ambiguity ceases to be evidence of simple and written language. It becomes a symbol of unused.
In his English novel, Kingsley Amis identified two enemies of the language. “Berks” speaks clearly and intelligently. In their hands, or in their mouths, English can die from pollution, as late Latin. “Wankers”, by contrast, are very important. They can make English die white, like Latin in the 21st century.
What we’re up against now, our fellow Anglophones, is a mixed race. Imagine that someone did not pay attention to his custom, and the unsightly wanker’s zeal. (I can combine epithets but the results are consistent with the main task of reading FT.)
The worst change, I can have. If you “call” things and go back to people, you sound silly but your meaning sounds better. And there is nothing wrong with the falsehoods of the “Be strong in what you bring” history. The problem begins when language loses its meaning, not its grace.
That time has come. I considered it a blessing that the English did not have their own version of the Académie Française, with another version of VS Naipaul on its back. I now wonder. French immaturity did not allow the language to wipe out the world, yes. But then it makes sense again.
Email Janan to janan.ganesh@ft.com
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