English Patience

Kirk Baird

Thursday, March 16, 2000 | 8:29 a.m.

"Embrace the bass with my dark ink fingertips/Used to speak the king's English/But caught a rash on my lips/So now my chat just like dis." -- From "Hip Hop" by Mos Def.

For those who would read that statement, cringe, and say the English language is indeed going to hell in a handbasket, John McWhorter's got news for you: You're wrong.

In fact, McWhorter, author of "The Word on the Street: Fact and Fable About American English," disagrees with anyone who contends that the English language is falling apart.

"Language does not decline, it simply changes," said McWhorter, associate professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley. "The changes (are) often mis-analyzed as 'decline' out of sense that, one, the way a language is now is the way it 'must' be, and, two, the sense that grammar must always follow the rules of formal logic, which it simply does not."

That's hardly the case one would get from reading books by Edwin Newman and William Safire, both outspoken critics of what they perceive as the decimation of the English language. In fact Newman, a former NBC newscaster, was brutally honest in how he felt about the state of the language when he titled his first book on the subject in 1974, "Strictly Speaking: Will America be the Death of the English Language?"

And while Safire, noted New York Times columnist, wasn't quite so brutal with his titles, "Watching My Language," "You Could Look It Up" and "Take Your Word for It," among others, his writing, at times, is just as scathing.

Both Newman and Safire seem to have appointed themselves as "language watchdogs," whose job it is to point out what they feel is the decline of the English language. For example, Newman states that English is losing its eloquence with a loss in simple, direct speech. Now routine speech is cluttered with what he calls "pomposity" and "banality."

In addition, the two maintain that there has been a loss in the so-called "proper" way to speak, with colloquialisms and Madison Avenue-coined jargon filling the void left in everyday speech.

That's something with which Elaine Chaika, author of "Language: The Social Mirror," disagrees.

She said that there is no "right" or "wrong" form of language. as some experts contend. All language is governed by rules, she said, but what is acceptable to one person, isn't to another. It's not a question of it being correct, but a reflection of societal differences. Consequently, she said, there is no accurate way to judge someone based on the way they speak.

"The forms of language a person uses is adequate to their personal purpose. Language changes as people change," she said.

A Brief Lesson

The history of English can essentially be divided into three categories: Old, Middle and Modern. Within those categories there are sub-categories (for example, under Modern English, you have Early Modern, and American and Present-Day versions.)

It wasn't until the 1800s, however, when a group of English writers and educators decided that there needed to be a standard for the language, that a more permanent set of rules and spellings took hold.

When the group petitioned the British Parliament to establish an academy for language similar to those in Italy and France, its request was rejected. So the group decided to create its own standard of rules.

And that, said John Irsfeld, UNLV English professor, is where many of the rules we cling to originated. He said the group looked to three principals in helping to establish a set of rules for English:

First, it turned to the ancient Greek and Latin languages to help establish guidelines. For example, the grammarians knew that in Greek and Latin an infinitive, such as "to go" or "to like," is one word. Thus, Irsfeld said, they decided not to split the infinitives, so it's "really to like" vs. "to really like."

Second, the grammarians thought all change in the language led to its deterioration. Consequently, when they were uncertain about usage, they referred to earlier usages. The rational was, if change is bad, go back to the earliest possible use to get the correct meaning.

Third, they relied on logic. For example, whether to say "he is taller than she" or "he is taller than her." It was determined that there is an ellipses at the end of the sentence in place of "is tall." By that rational, the group concluded, "she" is the correct form, since it sounds better to say "she is tall" than "her is tall."

Still, what the group did not account for, Irsfeld said, is that no one owns the language -- it belongs to everyone. So their rules, while adopted, are subject to change by anyone at any time.

In addition, the English language regularly borrows and incorporates words from other languages into its own vocabulary. This is why, he said, there are more than 500,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, not counting scientific terms. It's also what makes the English language so wonderful.

"The thing is we're so willing to steal from everybody, I think it makes it more inviting for people learning the language," Irsfeld said. "They think those guys are inclusive, so we might as well include them."

Talkin' slang

Perhaps it's because the English language is so adaptable and willing to adopt new words into its fold that slang is so widely accepted and used.

For example: Jiggy, phat, da bomb, goin' postal, buggin', etc.

For those confused by the those terms, welcome to the world of high school teaching. It's a place at once as foreign as it is familiar, with new slang dropping in and out of the student vocabulary with the regularity of airline arrivals and departures. It's no longer enough to simply know a few words. Now you must keep up with phrases as well.

It's a job Jeneane Gallo, theater and department chair of Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts high school, is familiar with on an almost daily basis.

For example, when talking to a student recently, she couldn't help but notice his large, baggy pants. When she started to make fun of his attire, the boy replied that his pants were cool and were appealing to girls.

"So I asked him if he was a player," Gallo said.

The fact the teacher had used "player," common parlance for a ladies' man, caught the student off guard and caused him to turn red in embarrassment.

"I'm not that uncool that I don't know how to talk back to them," she said.

What Gallo is hearing or saying is nothing new, McWhorter said. "There has always been slang, (but) older layers of language tend to look less slang-laden because people were less inclined to write informally back then; writing was more exclusively for 'high' language," he said.

In addition, McWhorter said that signs in historical writings have indicated that young people in particular have always used slang, at least in Western societies.

And although slang is no more prevalent now than before, there is a prevalence of youth culture today, which gives slang wider exposure than it used to have.

So, besides occasionally confounding elders and peers, what is the value of slang?

Simon Gottschalk, associate professor of sociology at UNLV, said that using slang has both positive and negative impact. It's a way for people to share a common sense of identity or experience and can act as either a tool to unify or alienate.

"That's why it's important in youth culture and other subcultures in society. Using slang, we can communicate about ourselves," he said.

Then there's the ability to show yourself as being "with it" by using the right word or phrase at the appropriate time.

"Every human being can take any word they have and use it in a new way," Chaika said. "As long as the one who hears it can understand what that person meant, that's all that's necessary."

Influence

So, where does slang come from?

Well, it often starts out in a peer group and social network, and from there it gets passed along to other parts of society.

Felicia Campbell, a UNLV English professor and president of the Far West Pop Culture Association, said she used to pick up slang from her teenagers all the time.

"I'd end up blurting things out," she said. "There's a real richness to it." Campbell's teens, however, didn't find Mom's cool speech so amusing. As soon as she incorporated their slang, they would move on to something else.

"There's this tremendous effort people have to seem cool," she said. "Someone comes up with those words, and those who must be cool decide that's it."

That someone could very well be a copywriter. Charged with coming up with the ad campaigns and slogans that permeate most cultures, copywriters are directly responsible for the little blips of information that float across our televisions, jump out at us in magazines, hit us over the head in billboards and slowly creep into our subconscious.

For example, the slogans "Where's the Beef?" and "Just Do It" were two successful ad campaigns that found a place in the common vernacular as well.

And then there's the more subtle influences, such as the way things are phrased or written in advertising copy: Short. Choppy. One. Word. Sentences. The idea is by keeping the writing simple, the message will be more noticeable and sink in.

Such unique wordplay, said Dave Stewart, professor of marketing at USC, does have an influence on language, such as an alternative way of phrasing sentences. Any real impact, however, is probably very minor. In addition, he isn't convinced that some of these changes are bad; it's simply the evolution of language, he said.

But to point to advertising as a pox on the English language, as well as all forms of media, is a time-honored tradition, Stewart said. Only, it used to be that newspapers and popular literature were the sole culprits.

"Each new technology that comes along that makes it easier for a larger number of people to be exposed to an alternative speech patterns, gets criticized for the dumbing-down of the language," he said.

The "like" generation

Perhaps one word that could serve as the chief example of critics of today's speech is "like," as in: "It's, like, the greatest thing." Considered an interjection to intensify or lessen the proceeding word or phrase, "like" has crept into common parlance, perhaps the last vestige of "Valley Girl Speak," a style of talking in the late '70s and early '80s that originated in Southern California, particularly the San Fernando Valley.

And while to some, "like" may be approaching the title of "most overused word" in the English language, to others the word is not without merit.

McWhorter sees "like" as serving a function in that it conveys a certain attitude about what is being discussed.

For example, "It's, like, the best show I've seen," is a more of a compliment because of the way it places added stress in front of the subject, rather than simply saying, "It's the best show I've seen," McWhorter said.

McWhorter added, however, that because using "like" is seen as adding hesitation or hedge where a direct assertion is preferable, the use of "like" in that respect is seen as "sloppy."

Douglas Unger, UNLV English professor, said that "like" is a metronomic device that allows the speaker to pause and think of the next phrase. "My generation used 'y'know,' and I think the generation before (me) used 'uhmm,' a lot more," Unger said. "It's the same kind of thing.

"These things last about a generation before they're replaced by something else," he said. "That's the magic of English: it keeps redoing itself with this speech act."

The future

So, where does language go? How will people speak in a few hundred years? Will there be a continual breakdown of the language, as some suggest, or will it merely continue its evolution with new slang and phrases thrown in at regular intervals? Even as we head into the new millennium, one thing is certain: Language today will be as different to people centuries from now as Shakespeare is to us.

In fact, although Shakespeare might present something of a challenge to interpret for today's high school students, in his day it was the opposite: His writing was geared toward the mass audience.

Consequently, Shakespeare was criticized by members of high society for writing to the commoner, massacring the language in the process. Even the Bard, it seems, was not immune to the language watchdogs of his day.

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