Do you get annoyed when you dial a number and are asked to press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish?
Does the LOL in your grandchild’s e-mail make you feel you’re losing touch with your native tongue?
Relax, says Ammon Shea, lexicographer, dictionary researcher and author of the new book “bad english.’’
“English is not dying: it’s acting as it should, meaning it’s changing,’’ Ammon told me by phone the other day. “If the language hadn’t already gone through enormous changes we’d still be using ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ to address each other.”
How refreshing to hear something positive about changes it’s often hard to keep up with. And yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition, a traditionalist’s no-no Shea says is a no-longer-relevant rule.
The main purpose of Shea’s new book (he’s also written about the Old English Dictionary and various forms of English speech) is to make clear that what some of us fear as the deterioration of English — emoticons like LOL, denoting “laugh out loud” for example, or the growing option of Spanish — indicate just the opposite: a living language being constantly adapted.
That’s not what I expected when I ordered Shea’s book. I thought I’d get agreement with my disgust for “like” in place of “as,” and a rant on how far English has gone downhill. But Shea says those concerns say more about my not wanting to accept change from what I’ve been taught and am familiar with, than with English.
So much of what we say routinely now was once thought outlandish. The word “decimate,’’ which originally meant to kill one out of 10, is now broadly meant as designating widespread destruction — and the sky has not fallen, Shea says. “Premiere” or “debut” used as verbs were as recently as 1982 described as “barbarous,” awful to have them “wrenched from their origins as nouns.” That’s how I’ve felt about using “impacting” instead of “affecting,” which Shea assures me is thoroughly accepted now, alas.
Who instigates these changes, I asked?
“Today’s kids and the social media are increasingly influential,’’ Shea says. In the 1950s, whole new usages sprang up from a growing interest in and acceptance of jazz: words including “cool,’’ “hip,” “blues” and “man” for instance, just as computer-ese has given new dimensions to “friend,” “like,” “surf” and dozens more.
But what about pressing 2 for Spanish? Shea explains. “Unlike England, the U.S. has never declared English its official language.” He adds that of all today’s first-world nations, we are the most limited at speaking more than one language. Most European nations encompass several.
And he said our real fear is not of greater use of Spanish wiping out English, but of “something deeper.” It’s not hard to use your imagination on that one.
Emoticons new? Well, RIP long predated LOL, and “is no more dangerous to the language,” Shea claims. And kids who use text-speak to save time, can, he believes, write well when they need to.
So get on board, folks. Remind yourself that “impact” was first used as a verb in the 17th century. And if Shea’s book doesn’t impact you, maybe it’s time, hopefully, hip up.
Reach Sharon Schlegel at SharonLSchlegel@verizon.net
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