Living Language

When Mom was pregnant, she would get piles of materials- developing baby magazines, information on baby formula, baby name booklets, and so forth. I have no idea what happened to most of that stuff, but the name booklets stuck around forever. And I frequently pored over them, seeing what the names of all my friends and family meant. Then when I was a young teenager, or maybe just 11 or 12, I picked up one of my parents' gospel books- Gospel Symbolism by Joseph Fielding McConkie. One chapter is titled Names: A Story Within the Story. I think reading that chapter first introduced to me the idea that names actually come from words. For some reason I had never realized that's where the name meanings came from.

From these experiences sprouted two significant interests of mine- name meanings, origins, and trends and general etymology. Mostly English, although other languages can be interesting, too.

I see two general trends with regard to the rules of English. On the one side is the view that there are strict English rules, and we should follow them. The other side sees language as organic and developing. The rules are defined by usage, not the other way around. I tend to fall in line with the second side. Language is definitely not static. New words form. Old words become archaic. Some words change meaning. It all changes depending on the needs of the people, which change over time. And the purpose of language is to communicate. If the old rules of our language make communication more difficult or less beautiful, then they need to change. And if the general population starts to use a word in a different way, let them. It is filling a need. Just so long as when they use it, their meaning is clear. It's happened before. It will happen again. And I think it is a beautiful thing, because that means our language is still living.