The English language is horribly vague

Most people have a working vocabulary of less than a thousand words. How large has the OED grown to these days? Even those with larger vocabularies typically refrain from using them for fear of losing their audience. Only when we are communicating with peers within our specialties. esoteric words, terms and phrases can be used with confidence. Churchill, one of the foremost users of our language in the last hundred years, cautioned never to use a foreign word when a simple anglo-saxon word is available. The point is to communicate, and if the reader has to stop and think about what a word means you've as good as lost them.

What we probably should be shooting for is to increase the general level of education, and encourage people to write with greater care. Simple declarative sentences averaging 14 words can be very powerful, clear and carry deep insights. Sometimes it is necessary to use complex sentence structure loaded down with semi-colons and other gramatical guides, but those occasions are relatively rare.

Mostly we see: "Ya know, what I mean, like really, really grossed out". " " "Then he said, ****!"

The overuse of exclamation points is a sure sign that the writer's brain is "on-hold". No matter how "good" the language, the extent of vocabulary, etc., it is nothing if the writer doesn't care enough to think, organize and then give some consideration to how their thoughts are committed.

Well, every English speaker knows how many ways there are to use the word f**k, and it's apparent universality as a 'part of speech' seems to be it's strength. Noun, verb, adjective...you name it, f**k covers all the bases. Now, from a linguistic view, we have to consider that language is always growing, changing, expanding, from global influences. English is like this. I don't personally like a lot of slang, but it's there, it's coming in, and I feel that even if it ain't correct, it should be accepted, or the language dies.

In language there is no 'correct.' Languages develop over many many years, and the English language is constantly changing. There are many different dialects, and sociolects, and contrary to common belief, none of them are 'wrong.' Working class people here, in South Yorkshire, England, tend to say "I work 9 while 5" rather than "I work from 9 to 5." This is completely consistent with the Yorkshire dialect as it is now - lots of people speak like that, so they all understand each other. Many American teenagers tend to speak as Asherman quoted. There is no 'correct' English language, there are only standards of English which we establish for the purpose of having a universal language that everyone can understand, and it's used in news reports, etc. Some people seem to mistake these for the 'correct' versions of the language, when really they are just derived from dialects like any other. Standard English in Britain was originally a regional dialect, so to assert that any other regional dialect is 'incorrect', as many people do, is absurd. In informal situations, there's absolutely nothing wrong with speaking in whatever way comes naturaly to you, whether it's saying "ooh, gross" every five seconds or using huge sentences with 1234567-syllable words.



I just don't understand this at all, how do you mean flawed? Yes, we attach many different meanings to the same word, but we can ussually guess which meaning is relevent from the context - this works pretty damn well, because if it didn't then no sentences would really make much sense to anyone. It would actually be more accurate to say that particular words have come to mean various different things - it's not a flaw in design, nobody's sat down and designed the English language, it's just happened. Gay used to mean something like 'jolly,' but now it means ' homosexual' - this semantic shift was gradual, nobody suddenly said, "right, from now on, gay means homosexual." How exactly is using the same words to mean different things in different contexts a 'flaw'?

Probably between 650,000 and 700,000 in the OED. English has the largest vocabulary of all languages by at least several hundred percent (far more than the circa 700,000 words in the OED, technical terms alone would add over 1 million).

Thing is, it's not true that most people have a working vocabulary (active vocabulary) of less than 1,000 words unless you mean children, infants and illiterates.

Simple conversation (basic) alone would require substantially more than 1,000 in the active vocabulary.

I doubt there will ever be an agreement on what love is, just that it's important. although I admit, I believe it was mandarin that has about 80different words for love each with different meanings, love for your dog, your wife, your money, yourself, ...
But in this asian influence, I am ever reminded by a wise mans words: 'If you have a 100 people, you have a 100 different ways to love another' (at least, I would add)

Infinity is a conceptual problem, any concept so abstract will remain abstract in any language.

And I don't see the problem with 'Thank you'. Perhaps you could change that by: Thanks. Because we might trip over semantics (pointing out the obvious fact that this was a combination of 2words, let's break language down to the basics, one at a time. No combinations yet)

It doesn't make any sense to you, because you're missing most of the ways that meaning is made in English. Sure, the term "love" taken out of context can mean any number of things, but could "love" in the phrase you gave above, "some believe love does not exist" mean anything except for the definition you assigned to it? Vocabulary is only a very small part of any language, and contributes only superficially to meaning. If we had a new word for every meaningful segment of language, we would have too many words for anyone to learn, and no inflections, grammar, social contexts, or any of the other things that make language so intuitive and interesting. If you think having these things makes it flawed, than I guess that's your opinion.

Yes! Very true.

"Eww, gross!" can actually say a lot when combined with facial expressions, intonation, etc. In fact, me and my sisters often say, "your mum!" or swear at each other in some way almost as a sign of affection.

English is a composite of . . .
The English "language" is a composite of many languages - principally, from Old English, Middle English, the Romance languages, and other European languages such as German. However, verandah is a Hindi word; hurricane is Taino - hurakan; possum (opossum) is Virginia Algonquian, as is the word raccoon; quisling (traitor) is Norwegian; . . . the list is "endless."

The Hungarians, the Russians, the French - and maybe others - have Language Institutes to "manufacture" new words according to "rules" of their own specific language. Although, certainly, "foreign" words have crept in.

Look at any Merriam-Webster dictionary and you will see most word "origins."

Also, many language do not have the idioms or "slang" that are/is found in English. Which is truly much more colorful and "fun"! [/color]

Just because English borrows from other languages doesn't make it not a language in its own right. Other languages would borrow just as much too, if not for restrictions placed on borrowage by the governments.

Re: The English language is horribly vague


What do you mean by that?

My major problem with language, at the least the two I am familiar with (English and Spanish), is that they are tied to grammatical structures that surreptitiously presents themselves as the structure of the world. We see the world through our grammar, full of dualisms such as subject-predictate and non-existent agencies (as in "it" rains). I think it was Nietzsche who said that God is the result of man's belief in grammar. I do not at all mind the ambiguity built into words. The connotative power of language makes possible the art of poetry, probably the best way to express and shape what we experience.

English is the most vibrant and colorful language because it is the least restrained by grammatical constraints. At least in America. It soaks up cultural speech like a sponge and introduces a ton of new words every year. The nuances of English can seem vague to someone learning it ,like I did when I was 9 years old but through persistant study its myriad complexities can be overcome.

I'm talking about grammar, not semantics. The "new words" introduced to the language every year continue to be organized in terms of the same grammatical structure. If not, I'd like to see an example.

My bad

I stand corrected. But I was excluding ideocies. Thanks.

See! You just introduced a new English word. And a fine one I might add.

I agree with your point JLNobody, grammar is restricting. I still disagree with what seems to have been Asherman's misconception that there is a 'correct' way to use language.

What does he know? He's a Buddhist.

The purpose of writing is to communicate, and that isn't an easy thing to accomplish. Between the thought and the word is a very large gulf, though for many people thinking itself is sort of like an internal dialog.

Lets step through a simple communication.

Alice has an idea. She has noted that even after the fire has apparently burned out, that it can be rekindled by adding straw and blowing on it until an ember restarts the flame. Look at all the words I needed to string together just to begin setting up the demonstration. Alice, and her audience, Bob, have a word for "fire" that is clear and unambiguous. They may also have a word that carries the meaning "breath", though that word might also mean "alive", "spirit", or "wind". Perhaps there is a word for "dead". In this primitive language, let us say that there are also verbs and nouns. How would Alice construct the communication of her idea?

"fire is dead. Alice make fire alive by straw, by breath." This is crude, but perhaps Bob will get the idea since he already shares the words and basic grammar structure. If Bob doesn't have the word fire in his vocabulary, then Alice is just making noise to herself. If Alice decides that grammar isn't terribly important and she says, "Dead fire alive. Alice breath not dead", is her communication more, or less clear to Bob whose understanding of the language is structured more like our first example?

We have to fit words and grammar together to form a signal that is understandable to our audience. Sender and Receiver have to share words, concepts and a structure for the signal to be understood, to be a real communication. A person blind from birth can never truly understand the concept of color, much less "blue", and the notion of "azure" or "indigo" mean even less. The Sender has to encode the thought and then transmit it in a form the Receiver can decode. A verbal signal to someone like myself who is mostly deaf is almost useless. To communicate by writing when the Receiver is illiterate is no better.

What is literacy anyway? The ability to code and decode language in a written form? Language isn't just a vocabulary list. What might this mean? "of washington and series cells attacks and new in coordinated of out york plotted the a carried terrorist yesterday ." All of those are legitimate words taken right out of the dictionary, all have meanings, but the grouping has no meaning without grammatical structure. "The terrorist cells plotted and carried out a series of coordinated attacks yesterday in New York and Washington", now the words mean something.

Try this one, "Orgalthis rode the banderlyoo over the drhanichil boreality." Nice grammar, but still the signal is meaningless unless the receiver knows what "Orgalthis", "banderlyoo" "drhanichil" and "boreality" might mean. Did the Sender mis-code the words or the accepted structure in these two examples, or is the Receiver at fault for the failure to communicate?

If we want others to understand what we wish to say, we must code and transmit the signal in a means that can be understood by the Receiver. The more we diverge from accepted language protocols, the greater the probability that we won't communicate very well, if at all. If I wish to communicate a complex idea about the nature of the universe to a an unseen audience, say at A2K, how should I best construct my signal? In the precise and unambiguous language of higher mathematics? In Mandarin Chinese? In the English current during the late 15th century? Of course, not. Here, if I want to be understood I have to use the English language as it is most widely used at the beginning of the 21st century. The more slang I use, the fewer people there are who will understand me. If I make a hash of the grammar, then the message will be garbled and probably misunderstood. To often use misspelled words, very poor grammatical construction, or misuse of words (i.e., "their" for "there"), is to un-necessarily make your communication more difficult.

Finally, People judge others on the basis of their use of language. What do you think your chances are of getting an "A" in a college business course if you misspell six words on the first page, use the construction "ain't got no reason to buy when costs is going up like". Imagine a lawyer trying to persuade the Supreme Court to rule in favor of his client's negligence suit using Eubonics. "I won him", my youngest son used to say after beating his brother at checkers. If his grammar never improved on that, would you most expect to find him in (a) prison (b) the White House (c) unemployment line, or (d) in line to receive his Phd? Careful now children, this might be on the midterms. :wink: