"Social decay is caused by a widespread decay in the clarity of thought"

"What a man cannot state he does not perfectly know, and conversely the inability to put his thoughts into words sets a boundary to his thought... . English is not merely the medium of our thought; it is the very stuff and process of it." —Report of the Departmental Committee on the Teaching of English in England ; H. M. Stationery Office (1921)


The Impact Of Social Decline Upon Language
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/language/index.htm

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Language IS understanding, which makes an author's use of language a clear guide to the nature of that author's understanding. As social decay is caused by a widespread decay in the clarity of thought, this must obtain a widespread decay in the clarity of expression. The symptoms of which can only be a general discarding of the disciplines of spelling, punctuation and grammar, along with the loss of short plain sentiments; evidence that is available to everyone and easy to recognise. Qualities that make consideration of the general use of language an ideal tool to diagnose decline and explain why the history of English literature is the diary of the rise then decline of English speaking civilization.

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How To Diagnose If A Community Is Declining (Losing Sanity)
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/diagnose.htm#Words

Language is Understanding
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/undrstnd.htm

A survey of linguistic science will reveal to you that the author is at most only partially correct. A lot of what we now consider "standard" English grammar and spelling is a result of things like laziness of tongue and semantic shift. For example, if we could bring Sakespeare to early 19th century America (well, any period in American history in which English was a common tongue, really), he would be quite lost in both the written and spoken language.

I think his point has less to do with how language changes over time, and more to do with how a society declines when its language decays.

Interesting. I think it's normal for grammar and vocabulary to change over time, in all languages. But languages do contain a lot of cultural information. The English language is in a unquie situation right now as the world's lingua franca...that is definitely having an impact, IMO. For instance, there is a general sense that English is a "cultural neutral" and "global" language.

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Originally Posted by Deborah K

"What a man cannot state he does not perfectly know, and conversely the inability to put his thoughts into words sets a boundary to his thought... . English is not merely the medium of our thought; it is the very stuff and process of it." —Report of the Departmental Committee on the Teaching of English in England ; H. M. Stationery Office (1921)


The Impact Of Social Decline Upon Language
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/language/index.htm

How To Diagnose If A Community Is Declining (Losing Sanity)
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/diagnose.htm#Words

Language is Understanding
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/undrstnd.htm

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http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com...d-freedom.html

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Originally Posted by Deborah K

I think his point has less to do with how language changes over time, and more to do with how a society declines when its language decays.

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What some see as language decaying, others may see as evolving. I could agree there is quite a bit of both going on with the new mediums of communication we have today.

This applies today with replacing describing how one feels with emojis and just the word "feels."

Wow, so much emotion and depth conveyed with that one word! I totally know how that person "feels!" :p

Simplifying our language/vocabulary take away our ability to articulate and communicate.

Thinking matters for a very small part of the population.

Say, 1% of the population holds an executive (no boss) position.

It really doesn't matter what the other 99% think.

The question is what kind of standard of living they will enjoy, which is a function of the economic system.

...which will be thoroughly FUBAR in any system other than laissez faire.

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Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.

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"When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty." -- Confucius