HUMA 17000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Semantic Change, Glossolalia, Language Change
4 Aug 2016
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Attitudes towards language change: neutral: english as spoken today is the same as it ever was, positive: english today is better than ever, negative: english is going to the dogs. [mcwhorter] warns that the near-total loss of formal expression in america is unprecedented in modern history and has reached a crisis point in our culture such that our very ability to convey ideas and arguments effectively is gravely threatened". [doing our own thing: the degradation of language and music and why we should, like, care (john. The trouble with grammatical errors [sic] is that they multiply and proliferate until all is error and confusion. We must urgently stop between you and i. Otherwise, it will lead us to every kind of deleterious misunderstanding. With computer communication threatening to corrupt our language beyond intelligibility, it is more important than ever to uphold usage that has precedent and to limit change to what is sensible and useful.
