Certainly, language is important; otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing right now. Some argue that it shapes worldview; others, that it doesn’t. Both sides have good arguments and a slew of anecdotes to support their views. Both refer to tests run by psychologists. Language.
Definitely, changing language over a generation can change views. In fact, as we see in every generation, using different words and expressions makes one generation’s perspective different from another’s. Once new terminology pervades a group (or a group invents terms), a singular mindset evolves.
We could argue that circumstances demand words to describe them. We could argue that ideas generate circumstances. Neologisms abound, driven into existence by the need to be unique in burgeoning populations of the literate, the desperate, the philosophical, the innovative, and the ambitious.
No doubt lexicographers and linguists will never run out of work, and their contemporary psychologists and sociologists will stay busy explaining the motivations and attitudes that both generate and derive from neologisms. Nothing wrong in that: Technological advances alone require new terms for new devices.
What we all know for certain is that language changes. Old English differs from Middle English that, in turn, differs from Modern English. Take the Middle English of Chaucer as an example.
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote… *
Spelling catches your eye first, but the language sounds a bit different, also. And, as a further obvious example of linguistic changes, go to a text of Beowulf to see how English changed between its beginnings as Anglo-Saxon and its expression in Chaucer’s medieval England. ** Yes, language changes both through reflecting attitudinal changes and propagating them. It changes by dialect and practice. It changes with changing circumstances. But language cannot change math. It can’t change how we quantify. Or can it?
According to a report by Teri Webster, *** California legislator Hannah-Beth Jackson imposed new committee rules that ban the use of he and she. Instead, Jackson wants the committee members to use the word they, and Jackson wants members to refer to her as they. Immediately, the absurdity followed, as reported by Webster.
“So, the world is a different place. My grammar teacher’s long gone and we won’t be hearing from her,” Jackson said.
According to Webster, noting Jackson’s plunge into her own linguistic trap, “She then corrected her use of the word her.”
“From them…from they,” Jackson said.
I guess we are in one of the language transition stages, not a new thing as readings of Middle and Old English texts reveal. You will have to start making everyone (Yes, “one”) around you plural. You’re just not going to change your sense of gender. You’re going to have to change your sense of math. No longer will 1 = 1. One will equal they.
Good luck in your brave new world of the new math.
*You can hear a reading of Chaucer’s opening lines at http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/gp-aloud.htm Accessed January 19, 2019.
** You can see a video with a reading at https://www.realmofhistory.com/2017/04/27/beowulf-read-original-old-english/ Accessed January 19, 2019.
***Webster, Teri. California Dem State Senator bans ‘he’ and ‘she’ pronouns during judiciary committee hearings Online at https://www.theblaze.com/news/california-democrat-state-senator-bans-he-and-she-pronouns-during-judiciary-committee-hearings Accessed on January 19, 2019. There’s a video with the relevant segment beginning at 13:20. Immediately following the discussion of the rules, the committee begins to discuss the abortion issue, and the reference the opening speaker uses is the feminine pronoun, not the required “they.” After the Chair said that the “Chair” was to be referred to as They, Senator Connie M. Leyva, a… (I don’t know what word to use) referred to the “Chair” as “Madame.” And she said, “Every woman has the right to control her own reproductive decisions….” Almost immediately, as I said, the absurdity of the new math imposed itself, and the Chair followed the witness remarks with the use of “her.” We are in the midst of a very big transition. You are “They.” Get used to the new math.
Definitely, changing language over a generation can change views. In fact, as we see in every generation, using different words and expressions makes one generation’s perspective different from another’s. Once new terminology pervades a group (or a group invents terms), a singular mindset evolves.
We could argue that circumstances demand words to describe them. We could argue that ideas generate circumstances. Neologisms abound, driven into existence by the need to be unique in burgeoning populations of the literate, the desperate, the philosophical, the innovative, and the ambitious.
No doubt lexicographers and linguists will never run out of work, and their contemporary psychologists and sociologists will stay busy explaining the motivations and attitudes that both generate and derive from neologisms. Nothing wrong in that: Technological advances alone require new terms for new devices.
What we all know for certain is that language changes. Old English differs from Middle English that, in turn, differs from Modern English. Take the Middle English of Chaucer as an example.
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote… *
Spelling catches your eye first, but the language sounds a bit different, also. And, as a further obvious example of linguistic changes, go to a text of Beowulf to see how English changed between its beginnings as Anglo-Saxon and its expression in Chaucer’s medieval England. ** Yes, language changes both through reflecting attitudinal changes and propagating them. It changes by dialect and practice. It changes with changing circumstances. But language cannot change math. It can’t change how we quantify. Or can it?
According to a report by Teri Webster, *** California legislator Hannah-Beth Jackson imposed new committee rules that ban the use of he and she. Instead, Jackson wants the committee members to use the word they, and Jackson wants members to refer to her as they. Immediately, the absurdity followed, as reported by Webster.
“So, the world is a different place. My grammar teacher’s long gone and we won’t be hearing from her,” Jackson said.
According to Webster, noting Jackson’s plunge into her own linguistic trap, “She then corrected her use of the word her.”
“From them…from they,” Jackson said.
I guess we are in one of the language transition stages, not a new thing as readings of Middle and Old English texts reveal. You will have to start making everyone (Yes, “one”) around you plural. You’re just not going to change your sense of gender. You’re going to have to change your sense of math. No longer will 1 = 1. One will equal they.
Good luck in your brave new world of the new math.
*You can hear a reading of Chaucer’s opening lines at http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/gp-aloud.htm Accessed January 19, 2019.
** You can see a video with a reading at https://www.realmofhistory.com/2017/04/27/beowulf-read-original-old-english/ Accessed January 19, 2019.
***Webster, Teri. California Dem State Senator bans ‘he’ and ‘she’ pronouns during judiciary committee hearings Online at https://www.theblaze.com/news/california-democrat-state-senator-bans-he-and-she-pronouns-during-judiciary-committee-hearings Accessed on January 19, 2019. There’s a video with the relevant segment beginning at 13:20. Immediately following the discussion of the rules, the committee begins to discuss the abortion issue, and the reference the opening speaker uses is the feminine pronoun, not the required “they.” After the Chair said that the “Chair” was to be referred to as They, Senator Connie M. Leyva, a… (I don’t know what word to use) referred to the “Chair” as “Madame.” And she said, “Every woman has the right to control her own reproductive decisions….” Almost immediately, as I said, the absurdity of the new math imposed itself, and the Chair followed the witness remarks with the use of “her.” We are in the midst of a very big transition. You are “They.” Get used to the new math.
RSS Feed