• right now

  Adding your comment:
• 
  pnktrky
  April 5
  Edit | Reply
  when talking about knowledge. it is the values that parents have instued on their children and the way these values grow over the passing of expierences that makes a person who they are and what they do and why the do it. simply said... one who wants to succed and surpass will because that is what the whole point is about while others merely contempt with a passing grade shall forget. knowledge to me is of too great of a value for me to answer this question correctly.
  ps- very well put wanderingstarlet

Please register or login to comment! It's totally free

• right now

  Adding your comment:
• 
  Weydon
  March 14
  Edit | Reply

  Thought of another one

  When people write out "till" instead of "until". I'm fine with saying it--I speak like an idiot compared to how I write (BEAUTIFULLY...). But it bugs me that people think till is the right word. I think this was encouraged with the onset of spellcheck. Till IS a word. Just not the abbreviation of until.
• 
  Weydon
  March 15
  Edit | Reply

  Ginormous

  I hate that "word"...
• 
  Xelgaroth
  March 15
  Edit | Reply
  I agree to an extent Weydon that languages evolve all the time, most particularly the English language, since it's such a hybrid, mutt language if you will. Unlike the Romance languages, which all have their own root they can always fall back on, English is a blend of so many languages from all over the world that it can bend and twist like hot metal. That doesn't exempt all languages from having variations and evolutions over time, certainly not, but the others are so much more concrete. This is why a Frenchman is more likely to speak french just like everyone else who speaks it than an Englishman is going to speak it like his next-door neighbor. But while words do evolve over time, what we are seeing in the English language is not merely the evolution of the language, but rather the decline.
  
  Consider, Weydon, that not only are words changing, but the AMOUNT of words used by the populace is decreasing dramatically. The average vocabulary of a postmodern adult living in the United States is far lower than an adult living in the nineteenth century. Ironically, there are actually more WORDS existing in the English language NOW than back in Shakespeare's day. Over fifteen thousand more words to be exact. Somehow, though, it is Shakespeare who can bring them together. Even shakespeare himself invented words! He invented "assassination" and a few other words. The development of new words is natural and healthy. But the declination of vocabulary indicates that the language is decaying. Also, more and more words are not actually words at all, at least not in the conventional sense, rather, they are more or less just contractions or blendings of other words. For instance, insofar, inasmuch, moreso, therein, these are words that used to be phrases: in so far, in as much, more so, there in, etc, that have now been grouped together. The advent of the Internet also accelerated this process. r u home 2nite is now the phrase, rather than "Shall you be home this evening?"
  
  Look at letters and correspondences written by people of not even a century ago; the writings of even the uneducated farmboy serving in the civil war writing to his sweetheart. They are verbose, poetic, beautiful. Now we cut words, blend words, and reform words, not as the general change, but out of the hopes of conciseness, at the expense of succinctness and beauty. One of the beautiful things about the english language is its immense vocabulary-- it's plethora of shades of meaning. You can convey an idea with virtually exact precision if you know enough of the language. You don't just have dark and light, you have dim, twilight, ambient, bright, blinding, radiant, glowing, luminous, bleak, pitch, charcoal, deep, vivid, lambent, luscent, crepuscular, murky, attramentous, aphotic, and many, many more. But how many would describe "the oppressive, crushing bleak Void holding me within its inexorable grip." without saying, "The dark made me uncomfortable." I'm not saying you HAVE to say it flowery, but how many people actually have that CAPACITY anymore? In this, I think it can be observed that English is declining.
• 
  Weydon
  March 16
  Edit | Reply
  Eh, I still disagree. Do you 400 years ago everyone talked like that? The Bard may have had knack for it, but that's part of why he's stayed so famous. Their vocabulary, and furthermore literacy, were at far worse levels than ours.
  
  I speak and write extremely differently, as I'm sure most people do, at least when having to write a formal paper. I like to think I have a slightly above average vocabulary, but I don't know if sitting down for a synonym contest would convey that. Words I know and words that come to mind in the moment are different things. Efficiency is also important in language. To be honest I have no idea what crespuscular, attramentous, and aphotic even mean, and if they happened to come up in a book I'd look them up and probably forget them within a month because I'll never see them again. But everything else is fairly basic, and I, like most people, would read or hear them and know exactly what you're talking about. Our adjectives stand strong, but the use of it in everyday speech is unneeded and out of place--with the exceptions of bright, blinding, murky, glowing, and dim which come up easily in situations that cause for the specific differences.
  
  Writers are still writing well, teachers are still teaching well, but not everyone wants to be a writer and not everyone wants to read for leisure. I don't know squat about math. At all. I'd barely pass a basic arithmetic test--assuming I'd pass at all. I'm not even exaggerating. I don't know, or need to know, anything advanced amount math. I don't think this means modern math is struggling, I think it means the advanced math remains in the hands of those that need--and enjoy--it.

Please register or login to comment! It's totally free

• right now

  Adding your comment:
• 
  Weydon
  March 15
  Edit | Reply
  Oddly I never use shift to capitalize. I press caps, then press it again right after. I don't know why, I guess it was a habit I picked up as a kid before I knew shift capitalized letters and I typed about 1 word per minute lol
  
  "I am a fan of old english. The where for art thous and such."
  
  That's not Old English lol Old English is completely indecipherable to an untrained person. To quote Beowulf:
  
  Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum,
  þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon,
  hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
  Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
  monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
  egsode eorl.
  
  lol I've read the translation of Beowulf about 5 times, and the only thing I can recognize is Dena is Danes, and Scyld Scefing--a name.
  
  Later stages of Middle English are better, but still not fun to read:
  
  Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote
  The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
  And bathed euery veyne in swich licour,
  Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
  Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
  Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth
  
  I can decipher a decent amount of that, but mostly because I've written a couple of papers on the Canterbury Tales.
  
  That Shakespeare-speak is considered Early Modern English, and honestly I STILL don;t think it's fun sometimes. lol I find myself going "...wait, WHAT?" AT LEAST once per page. I much prefer the translated versions.
• 
  Jackymania
  March 29
  Edit | Reply
  Thanks weydon.......... for that insight.
  
  I am not a student of literature, so ...i feel you have given me something more to know about, especially about the earlier versions of English as a language.
  
  Stephrz ........ has strong opinion about present trends, and i appreciate his lamentations. This is a good topic taken up...... for o'r good Ol' English.
  

Please register or login to comment! It's totally free

• right now

  Adding your comment:

Please register or login to comment! It's totally free