Babble

Like most people starting a blog, I have very little to say. So I'll start it by reacting to what other people say; in this instance, what people have said about how other people say things.

Two reviews in yesterday's Guardian caught my eye, both on linguistics. One was of a book by David Crystal who gets all tetchy about recent critics of modern language like Lynne Truss and John Humphries. These people, he warns sternly, are not linguistic experts so should not be heeded. And besides, all languages develop over time, it is an inevitable and so moral-free process. The reviewer, Ian Sansom, should take issue with the first argument but instead focuses on the second. Sometimes language is peverted, he claims, and sometimes it is anything but neutral. He cites the Nazis, whose corruption of German was a central part of their loathsome mission.

Bringing the Nazis into any argument is the equivalent of... well, whatever hand happens to always win you a game of poker. You can't contradict it whole-heartedly for fear of appearing sympathetic to the Nazis yourself. But Sansom's overkill only really shows how the whole subject is a moral blank sheet. New words or phrases are assessed according to what we think of those making the changes, and we make these judgments from their actions in other fields. Take the other review, Alastair Campbell's of a book by Steven Poole. Poole lays into assorted fatuous, deceptive phrases introduced recently by politicians. Campbell counters that a lot of political terms are actually quite useful and the real dumbing down of language has been done by the media. Poole, we assume doesn't like politicians; Campbell, everybody knows, loathes journalists. However potent a new phrase is, it will be rejected if the speaker is already mistrusted. When a novelist launches one onto the world he is deemed a genius. When a football commentator tries the same (and Ron Atkinson alone was responsible for dozens) it is cited as an example of his poor education. The process isn't a simple one-way one, because nothing is, but ultimately words really are just a tool. Which makes me think that those linguistic experts which David Crystal admires are rather wasting their time.

As, indeed, I am. This is just an opening piece, taken from the top of my head rather too early on a Sunday morning. Later entries may be more considered and clear. Or there again...