Wordorigins.org

I seem to be on a Supreme Court kick this week. This time it’s Justice Antonin Scalia attempting to school a lawyer on proper usage during oral arguments for Hemi Group v. City of New York held this past Tuesday:

I love South Park. Not only is it funny, iconoclastic, and an equal-opportunity offender, but they very often express a core truth that blasts away society’s preconceptions and prejudices. In this clip they take on the subject of definitions of offensive words, in particular the growing use of fag and gay as general terms of contempt that have little or nothing to do with homosexuality.

The full episode can be seen here. (Warning: the full episode is NSFW)

We’re all familiar with the image of the crotchety grammarian, going off on some pet peeve or perceived a"abuse" of the language. Most of the time, these people can be either ignored, or, if they’re in a position of authority like a teacher or boss, temporarily accommodated. But occasionally, someone’s misinterpretation of grammatical principles can have real consequences. And when that misinterpretation is done by a US Supreme Court justice, the situation can be downright scary.

Geoffrey Pullum points out a truly horrendous example of a bad grammar book over at Language Log. He indicates that more examples are coming. I hope so; he makes a valid point that grammar is one area where you can establish yourself as an expert without knowing the first thing about the subject. (The most famous case, of course, being Strunk and White and the passive voice.)

But I do disagree with him about the “fat royalty checks.” As the author of a reasonably well selling book on language, I can say with assurance that the checks aren’t so fat. It’s not a gig you do for the money. (Exception: Lynne Truss, whose execrable book was accompanied by an absolutely brilliant marketing campaign.)

John McWhorter contemplates whether language death is really all that bad a thing.

He very much reflects my opinion on the matter. While the loss of languages is a definite blow to linguistic research and understanding, socially its effects may actually be beneficial to the isolated speakers of the rare tongues that are dying. And besides, it is happening whether we like it or not and there seems to be very little we can do about it except record as much of the dying languages as we can before they are gone.