On another note, I've come up with a new rule.

[conuly]

Every time I read the comments to an article that touch on ANY linguistic subject, I'm going to look up That One Chaucer Quote first. Then I'll just spam it at people who talk about "dumbing down" language, or "the decline of civilization", or "wild-eyed linguists and psychologists", or anything else along those lines.

Ahem:

Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.

Long story short, Geoffrey is getting at the fact that language changes and we'd all damn well better get used to it already. This isn't news, folks! Chaucer knew it, Shakespeare knew it, you'd better all figure it out!

Comments

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, but Chaucer and Shakespeare were literary and linguistic geniuses. The people who whine about "dumbing down language" and the like... generally aren't. ^^

[conuly]

And they're ignorant as well. A trained monkey might not be bright by human standards, but at least it doesn't try to do what it doesn't understand.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Which, as Socrates tells us, is the true mark of wisdom ;)

But yeah. It's really unfortunate that the most ignorant people tend to be the most vocal, too...