Death by Language

A rose by any other name may be the same, but if you call it garbage, it's probably going to get thrown in the trash. The best way to get rid of something and to get away with it in the public eye is to either relabel or redefine it. Then, it can be eliminated. For example, you can relabel a person as an undesirable, and then you can throw him in the gas chamber. You can relabel a child as prenatal tissue, and throw him in the garbage.

You can also elimate something simply by redefining it. You can redefine a person's reputation as worthless in the public eye (whether it's true or not) and destroy their authority. You can redefine a concept until it doesn't mean anything at all, thereby elimating the concept because it doesn't have any meaning to anyone anymore. If you can redefine marriage to mean whatever combination/number of men, women, animals, plants, and minerals that you want, then you can do whatever you want. Assuming of course, that there is no authority outside of yourself.

Man has this nagging suspicion that many of the things that he is doing is wrong. How can he get rid of this guilt, yet continue to do whatever he wants? Redefine the rules. If it is wrong to murder a human, relabel the human as not-human, then get rid of it. And he must keep reminding himself of these new meanings until he really believes it. As longs as he believes that he can define authority.


On a lighter note, while the evolution of a language can have negative consequences, it can have good ones, or neutral ones, too. It is strange, after all, to see how the English language can have different rules that apply in different situations. Spoken English does not match written English. Turabian's written style doesn't match the Associated Press's style. What the heck am I supposed to do with...

Commas:

1. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli went to Krispy Kreme.
2. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli went to Krispy Kreme.

I am now told that No.2 is correct, which is very frustrating to me. I personally don't like it, and when I write my own stuff, I use No.1. Whenever I'm instructed to use No.2, I do so obediently and reluctantly.

Apostrophes:

3. Here is Andy Scates's coffee.
4. Here is Andy Scates' coffee.

I prefer No.3. To me, No.4 makes me sound plural, which is not accurate. I am not plural.

Quotation Marks:

5. While donuts may be considered a "dessert", they are often served at breakfast.
6. While donuts may be considered a "dessert," they are often served at breakfast.

No.5 is grammatically incorrect, which is extremely frustrating to me. Probably because I'm approaching the sentence like a math equation, and it doesn't work. It's like the hierarchy of parentheses is out of order. For example...

7. (x + 1) * (y + 7) = 20
8. (x + ) 1 * (y + 7) = 20

No.8 is obviously bad syntax. With the sentence No.5, I have basically kept the opening and closing of the quotation marks within the clause. No.6 may be grammatically correct, but it's just bad syntax.

Second-Person Plural Pronoun:

This is one of the places where the typically-disdained Southern dialect shines. The term y'all (short for you all) fills in where Turabian fails. To simplify, I submit that we drop the apostrophe, so that the word is yall, or perhaps respell it yaul, which visually resembles you more than yall does.

Anyway, these are a few of my grammatical pet peeves. And as language tends to evolve by use, I hope that by enforcing them, I can change the language. I hope that yaul will share my vision for a more efficient written English language.

After all, it's not like I'm trying to redefine divine law.

Labels: film/tv/books/arts, religion/theology/philosophy