Our Crazy, Lazy Language

For those of you who don't know, I am currently teaching myself some Latin in preparation for summer school. When learning a new language, I find myself thinking about my own language. Having to memorize the oddities and exceptions of a beautiful, awkward language like Latin really makes me sympathize with people trying to learn English for the first time.

The mandatory fluency in English for immigrants to the U.S. is a topical issue in current society. I'm generally of the "all or nothing" mindset. Either we have signs in only English, or we post them in all relevant languages. Think that's unfeasible? Just go to Italy or any other European country where every sign is in four or five languages. It can be done. While I believe that people who come to live in a country should learn its language, I do think we natives could be a little more compassionate for those trying to learn. It's not an easy thing to do.

And besides, English is weird. Full of weird words. Weirds. Werds. Wirds. Wyrds. Anyway...

Some of you may remember an episode of the T.V show The Soup that spoofed reviews for the 2007 movie How She Move. The tagline was "How She Move revolutionize grammar." And really, it makes sense. Think about it.

I move, you move, he/she/it moves, we move, y'all move, they move

Notice any odd ones out? Why can't we regularize these outliers, instead of having to memorize infinite irregularities of our mother tongue?

Along that same line of thought, why do we have a contraction for "aren't" but not one for "am't"? We're forced to ask, "I'm verbose, aren't I?" when the un-contracted form (are not I) doesn't grammatically make sense.

In high school I studied German. I've always loved German because you can create a legitimate new word by mashing together any number of words that describe the object. Invent a device that can vacuum, dust, mop, and sweep? Staubsaugerstaubtuchbauschauskehrerding. It's now a word. Pretty sweet, eh?

There are over 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the BBC article "The words in the mental cupboard," the average English speaker knows between 50,000 and 75,000. This strikes me as incredibly depressing. They say that the study of Latin expands a person's vocabulary by around 80,000 words. In the five months I've been studying Latin, it has given me great delight to announce the roots the words I'm learning anyone within earshot. (The reaction when I proclaim, "Ah, probity. From the Latin probitas, meaning honesty," is usually rolled eyes, but it makes me feel all smart and classical.)

What is the point of my musings? I wish to encourage all of the potential word-smiths out there. Let's get off our posteriors and get creative with our language. Wouldn't our world be a lovelier and more interesting place if our daily vocabularies were varied, rather than the inane drivel that mass-media forces upon us?

And that's how she think.



Want to know how many words you know? Here is a link to the BBC article "The words in the mental cupboard."
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8013859.stm

You can view the aforementioned clip of The Soup here:
www.youtube.com/watch?y=oTmmzGaelX4