The Tower of Babel

I have complained for years about the demise of the English language. More precisely, about the decay of language as a tool of communication. Danny over at The Bumbling Genius has written a good article on this concept. Apparently, I'm not alone in my concern. It is, as Danny indicates, a modern version of the Tower of Babel.

Some change is inevitable. Technology drives the necessity for new terms. A mouse once clearly referenced a small creature for which you purchased a trap or a cat to eliminate and eventually every computer user had one for the computer. Not the same thing. Dictionaries are constantly adding new words to keep up with changes in technology. That's to be expected. And British English and American English, for instance, are similar but not the same. A "bonnet" has been a piece of brimless headgear and the hood of a car. In the U.S. we ride in elevators and in the U.K. they ride in lifts. People here live in apartments and in flats there. And so it goes. And the language just evolves. Did you know, for instance, that the "perks" of a job were originally the "perquisites" and we just got too lazy to say the whole word? Then, of course, people are always making up new words. The cell service provider, Sprint, has coined "framily" as a merge of "friends" and "family". Silly. Theodore Roosevelt coined "muckraker" and George W. Bush brought us "misunderestimate" and "embettermment". New terms.

So in many cases due to changes in environment, changes in geography, or just changes over time, the meaning of words change. It is to be expected. And it isn't much of a problem -- that is, as long as the original intent still exists. So if the British still have a word that refers to brimless hats and the Americans still have a word that refers to the hood of a car, the idea of the words still exists and we just have to learn what word expresses that to the other. As long as we understand that "perquisites" has been shortened to "perks", it's not a problem since the meaning hasn't changed, just the usage.

This, unfortunately, isn't always the case. In too many places, words are being subverted without being replaced. One of the obvious examples is the current redefinition of the term, "marriage". It has always meant the union of a man and a woman, but today we've stripped off that meaning, substituted "two people (an arbitrary number ... and, indeed, an arbitrary type -- "people") who love each other and want to commit to each other, at least for awhile." It used to be understood as a lifelong arrangement. Now it's most often temporary. It used to include monogamy; now it is "monogamish" -- serial monogamy. "Only one at a time ... or not." (Even that word "monogamy" has changed. That used to refer to marriage, demonstrating a difference between bigamy (married to two people at the same time) and polygamy (married to multiple people at the same time). No longer. Now it references the number of people with whom you are having sex. Now how is that the same?) So, if I wish to refer to the union of a man and a woman for life, what word is left me today? I can't say "marriage" because that word no longer means that, either in gender or in longevity.

In older movies, songs, and stories there are people who were "making love". This original sense was to be doing those things -- words and deeds -- that inspired love (which has also changed, largely, to mean "sex" but didn't used to mean that at all). That concept has not merely changed; it has vanished. Now the phrase refers to engaging in sexual activity ... and that activity may or may not include actual love. So if I wanted to refer to those things that produce a feeling of love, what term would I use? There isn't one anymore.

It seems like one of the biggest areas of the demise of the meaning of words without substitutes is in the area of Christianity. It is largely the Christians who wish to keep "marriage" just as it has always been intended while the rest of our culture is fine with eliminating the concept while they subvert the word. We've had to work hard to get across the idea of the genuine Christian. We've gone from "Are you a Christian?" to "Are you saved?" to "Are you born-again?" to ... what is it now? ... because each term shifted under our feet. Language and concepts have shifted continually and mostly in the arena of Christian concepts of morality. Sex, fidelity, idolatry, even the meanings of theological terms like Omniscience or "the Atonement" -- these concepts are moving. And they aren't trivial. Trying to discuss them or debate them becomes a monumental task when the words for them have either changed or vanished. So we end up with "I'm a Christian" and "I'm a Christian" and neither one means the same thing at all. Two people separated by a common language.

Danny suggests that we become "bilingual", speaking both the language as we know it as well as the language as those with whom we are communicating know it. That, of course, is a good idea, but I'm just not sure about the practicality of it. The language, it seems, is in constant transition. I will be comfortable with a word only to discover that the meaning has shifted. Just when I nail down the new meaning, it has changed again. Then, when I try to assimilate this new one, it turns out the idea I was trying to express no longer has a word. I don't know the answer, but I suspect that the culprit to this dilemma is not a friend of Man or God.