ENG205H1 Chapter Notes -Archaism, Staling, Jargon
Document Summary
The english language is in a bad way but most people assume we can"t do anything about it. Struggle against the abuse of language is archaic and sentimental. Decline of a language has political and economic causes. It is a circular problem: our thoughts become foolish, which leads to poor language, which leads to even more foolish thoughts and in turn, even worse language. Two faults of the english language: staleness of imagery and lack of precision. Dying metaphors are worn-out phrases that have lost all evocative power, and are only used when people don"t want to go to the trouble of inventing a phrase for themselves. Many used without knowledge of their meaning. Sometimes twisted out of their meaning (e. g. toe the line written as tow the line ) Operators or verbal false limbs save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and pad each sentence with extra syllables.
