Comments on: A Plea for Linguistic Honesty

By: Owen

Owen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:14:49 +0000

Well, I’m not sure why me claiming that most people are wrong in the way they use language would be intrinsically worse than me claiming that they’re wrong about some area of politics, but in any case that’s not really what I was doing – the post was mainly a response to other blogs, newspaper comment articles and politicians’ speeches, rather than to how ‘the populace’ use language.

Whether it’ll be effective…meh. I don’t really see the relevance of your point that some people’s political opinions have clout. ‘Some people who opine on political matters have enough influence to effect positive change’ does not entail ‘opining on political matters when you have minimal influence is a worthwhile activity’. I certainly disagree that being prescriptive about language is fruitless. The campaign for ‘political correctness’ is a pretty clear example of prescriptivism about language, and it had a pretty considerable impact – I can’t remember the last time I heard a black person referred to as a ‘nigger’, for example.

By: TomP

TomP — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:19:48 +0000

In the area of linguistics, anyway. That’s pretty much what everyone implies in politics every day of the weak.

By: TomP

TomP — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:18:14 +0000

You’re putting your localised situation against my general statement. There are political blogs that do arguably have an impact – or at least, there are people who (when they speak on political matters) are heard and make an impact in the field. The activity is not without merit.
However, I don’t think that anyone short of a fascist ruler willing to do something about it will make any difference spouting prescriptivism, making it more or less entirely without merit. It’s complaining that the sun sets too late, or that the tides don’t go out when you wish they would.
But even more than that, it comes across badly – prescriptivism is saying that the populace is wrong in the way they use language and that they should listen to you, because you know better than all of them. Whether this is true or not, it’s a mighty bold thing to imply.

By: Owen

Owen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:27:26 +0000

Just to be clear I don’t just think this is a problem because the (mis)use of language offends my aesthetic sensibilities. Because of the ambiguity of the meaning of extremist, you could easily (and accurately) describe a revolutionary socialist as an extremist, and in doing so implicitly condemn their views by equating them with those of the BNP. I’m not a revolutionary, but I think marginalising ideas just because they go against received opinion is generally a bad thing. I’m far more relaxed about marginalising the ideas of the BNP, because they’re both strongly opposed to received opinion and demonstrably harmful (for example, they’re very homophobic, and a culture where homophobic ideas are tolerated is much more likely to be one where homophobic violence is also tolerated, which is why homophobic violence in schools is still so bad compared to most other environments).

As for ‘farting in the wind’, um…we’re a blog read by a few hundred people a day, and as such our impact thus far on the political landscape of the UK has been minimal. I’m not sure what makes this post uniquely ineffectual compared to everything else on the site.

By: ADAMP

ADAMP — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:12:59 +0000

Language is dynamic, sure, and part of that process is holding onto or pushing meanings that you prefer, but it’s not sloppiness to recognise that words like ‘extremist’ and ‘progressive’ have acquired historical meanings and associations that make a perfectly valid and meaningful political conversation possible using them. The quest to ‘communicate with each other as effectively as possible’ is always going to come second to the dynamism of language, struggles over meaning and the loose coalitions of thought and argument that develop in the socio-political field.

It might well be worth asking people to clarify their thought on what they believe ‘progressive’ politics to entail, for example, but in most of the contexts you’ll find it used, I would suggest that it’s not true that all they’re saying is they believe in reform of some description rather than sticking to the status quo. There’s more to it than that, and I find it hard to see how it’s linguistic dishonesty to acknowledge and use the wider levels of meaning.

But what do I know, it’s not really my field

By: TomP

TomP — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:07:01 +0000

When a language truly needs a word, one will come to fill the gap. One could argue that ‘radical’ is growing to encompass the definition you described above.
But regardless, I think history has proven that attempts or intent to force direction upon a language is ultimately fruitless. Even Shi Huang Di’s forced unification of the Chinese script couldn’t stop the whole-sale division between the dialects and languages of the area from developing and spreading even further apart. Griping from anyone less than those with such power brings the phrase ‘farting in the wind’ to mind.

By: Owen

Owen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:44:03 +0000

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Meaning is about shared understanding (more or less, without getting all late-Wittgensteinian about it). But it’s not just about that. As speakers of a common language, we want to communicate with each other as effectively as possible. If a word originally meant one thing, and there was no synonym to concisely express the same thing (for example my ‘prescriptivist’ definition of extremist, which tallies closely with the meaning of other non-political variants of the same word, such as extreme), and then the meaning of that word changed, then I would argue that makes our language poorer. Since, as you rightly point out, language is dynamic, then it makes as much sense for me to be prescriptive about how I’d like our language to be as for anyone else.

By: TomP

TomP — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:12:51 +0000

Oop, but you seem to be revealing somewhat prescriptivist leanings with your ‘nothing more, nothing less’ definition of Extremist anyway. You’re giving the term as you would define it rather than how it is generally understood, which flies in the face of how languages work. As long as they’re not dead.

By: TomP

TomP — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:07:59 +0000

The definition-of-conservative battle isn’t one that should be fought anyway. Language has moved on beyond the definition you gave, and it’d be pretty damn prescriptivist to argue for an attempt to drag it back to where one wants it.

By: jgw

jgw — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:33:58 +0000

Martin Luther King, in fact, did respond to J Edgar Hoover’s description of him as an “extremist” by accepting the label, justifying this by asking “Wasn’t Jesus Christ an extremist in love?”

Everyone’s an extremist from one point of view or another, including extreme supporters of the status quo.