The language we use today is a bastardization of how language was. Every complaint you make about people using language wrong someone has made about the language you are using. And they complained first
If it’s only morons that use it “wrong”, then it does indeed become right, but still gains the added subtext of “by the way I’m also a moron”
So I should accept people saying “could care less” when they mean the exact opposite? Not sure I can do that.
Well. Sort of.
Some terminology is better defined by how the relevant experts use it. It’s singular and precise definition is required for any useful dialogue. If 99% of people call a kidney a liver but doctors call it a kidney its a kidney.
Some terminology evolves and is used differently by different groups. Sometimes the more illiterate group flattens the language by removing nuance or even entirely removing a concept from a language with no replacement. Arguably both definitions may be common usage but one is worse and using it means you are.
And I’m still gonna bitch about it if they’ve reduced the usefulness of a word due to habitual misuse!
But do you mean literally everyone or literally everyone?
If it is not literally everyone, it still might be correct in the way that using a word for (one of) its jargon meaning(s) is correct. So, correct in context.
When using words to convey information to an audience to whom you might not be able to clarify, it is useful to use words for the meanings listed in common dictionar(y/ies) (“correctly”) so that the audience can resolve confusions through those dictionaries.
For all intensive purposes, the meaning of words matters less than how we use it. Irregardless of how we decimate it’s meaning, so long as we get the point across there is no need to nip it in the butt. Most people could care less.
My pet peeve is ‘loose’ being used when ‘lose’ is intended. It’s so common now it might as well be the new spelling but I will die on this hill. I’ve had people comment in response to me correcting someone like I’m being ridiculous. Feels like I’m taking crazy pills!
I’ve allready to rite we’ll, but than my conscious sad, “For get the rules,” so I let my lose ideals led me. I’m two stubborn to accept that I should of staid in school.
Languages are living things. And living things always change. Note the Great English Vowel Change. Even the Norwegian my Grandfather spoke and that I learned from him was virtually a dead language that modern Norwegians stopped using in the 1850s. And the English spoken in the UK is different than the American English I speak. Spanish spoken in Spain isn’t the same as someone from Mexico speaks.
And when conversing with someone, (in the language of your choice), the words you choose to use are defined by the context you use them in. Words can have multiple meanings, but it’s the context and tone clarifies those meanings. Consider all the meanings of the single word ‘fuck’.
But problems start with written words. And many people have poor written communication skills. It can be hard to parse meaning from poorly written words because there is little context and tone that comes through with a typed sentence.
We are all just baying at the moon like any pack. And hoping some understands us.
Written word is a facsimile of a facsimile of what we’re actually communicating. We go from nebulous thoughts, concepts not bound by language, to sounds that roughly convey those concepts, and then to squiggly lines that roughly convey those sounds, and then back up the chain in the other person. Really, it’s a miracle we understand each other at all.
I would say this is not universal. For some, the written word is the native “tongue”, conveying the actual, intended meaning. The written word allows the speaker the opportunity to evaluate and revise their language to match their intent, and the listener the opportunity to re-evaluate previously transmitted thoughts.
The oral variant is dependent on the real-time aptitude of the speaker to articulate their thoughts and message, and for the listener to extract that meaning from the same. For those of us handicapped in these traits, the spoken word is the poor facsimile for actual (written) communication.
There are those constraints around written/spoken word, for sure. I’m more referring to how close it is to the “raw” thought.
We evolved the ability to think. In order to allow our thoughts to reach others, we developed spoken word. In order to allow those spoken words to be passed through time, we developed written word. Each refers back to the previous “layer” of communication.
Even someone who has a speech impediment, for instance, is still using the same written language as someone else in the same culture. And that written language was developed specifically to try and evoke the words someone in the culture speaks.
“Everyone” meaning the social media someone and their social set get their info and cues from, not the rest of the people around them.
Can I have some more pixels please
May I have more pixels please
April I have more pixels please
June I have more pixels please.<- period
I don’t know, june you?
Just June?
Not every month?
Would you mind providing us a few more pixels? Only if it is no trouble o’course.
/j
What if I told you that if everyone uses a word the “wrong” way, in slightly different ways, it’s wrong?
Descriptive
languagegrammar >> prescriptivelanguagegrammar
