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To: Borges

Actually language changes include randomly doing away with grammar and diction because society doesn’t like it anymore. And you of all people should know that, you read old books, you know how much basic grammar and diction changed between the times of Mary Shelley and James Joyce. There’s two constant forces that work on a language, one is the group of people whose primary use of language is to impress, the other is the group who are just trying to get a point across. The first group makes language larger and slower, the second makes it faster and easier. Which group is on top in any given time frame determines how the language is evolving, it’s either getting more flowery or more contractions. That is the normal evolution of language and you’ve done the reading to already know that.


75 posted on 11/03/2011 8:29:17 AM PDT by discostu (How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today)
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To: discostu

Joyce used his own form of grammar for artistic effect so that’s not a good comparison. I’m talking about standardized English not literary English. There has to be a set of standards agreed upon.

Do you know that the word ‘irony’ has basically been stripped of its meaning by the lazy who insist on using it to describe just about any commingling of events whether Ironic or not? It’s become a synonym of coincidence. English teachers are conceding that the word can’t be limited to its original definition any more. It’s awful.


76 posted on 11/03/2011 8:58:19 AM PDT by Borges
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