At 2:11 AM -0700 8/17/02, Caliann the Elf wrote: >I have to agree that the English Language is large, ponderous and unweildy. I don't agree. I think it is complex, elegant, and beautiful. However, I only speak English, so I'm biased. > It could stand to be whittled down into something more efficient. In a practical sense, that has already happened. Very few people use a large vocabulary on a regular basis. The word most commonly in use are only a fraction of the total words available. I don't see any reason to dispense with the ones that are used less frequently. They're terribly useful as reserve ammunition, in my opinion. As a discussion becomes more technical, more precise, it starts using less commonly used but more precise terms. >When was the last time anyone used the word "druthers" as a synonym >for "choice"? Actually, when was the last time anyone used the word >"druthers" when it was not precluded by the words "Give my..." or >"If I had my..."? Sometime in the last week, I expect. I happen to like the word druther, myself. If I had my druthers, people wouldn't look at me like I'd just sprouted tentacles when I used it, but what can you do? > >Besides, I am rather fond of the word "squick". Oh, me too. >There is a point to this, which is that I DO feel that English can >use a lot of help. It could be streamlined into what is actually >USED. Betcha it can't. How on earth would you go about getting other people to accept some new standards of what words can and can't be used? Language is not static, it's a process, and a process we don't even understand all that well. >I'd like a dictionary that didn't have the name of a piece of >harness used for draft horses in the 1200's. A "modern use in >vocabulary" dictionary. There are lots of them. How small does it need to be? And why do you resent the extra words? Seems to me that one of my collegiate dictionaries only claims 20,000 definitions, which is a pretty small percentage of the total words in the English language. > >As for Shakespear, I adore Shakespear, but the language has changed >in many ways since then. I am sure thee knowest of what I speak, >forsooth. What amazes me about Shakespeare is how well I can understand language that is 600 years old. I've been reading the Patrick O'Brian books, lately. They're written using early 19th century English, and it, too, is very diffferent from the English spoken today. I have a copy of the 11th Edition of the Enclyclopaedia Britannica, which is written in fine Victorian prose. In structure and vocabulary, it is quite unlike modern English, but it is delightfully comprehensible and a joy to read. The fact that I, who am but lightly educated, having only a high school diploma and a couple of college classes, can easily work my way through a Victorian sentence the length of an octavo page with only a moderate amount of effort, and that I can enjoy Shakespeare needing little more than footnotes and an occasional use of a good dictionary, proves to me that English is not inefficient and ponderous, but rather it is flexible and remarkably resilient, even when left in the untutored hands of someone like myself. -- Lydy Nickerson lydy at demesne.com lydy at lydy.com Dulciculi Aliquorum