by M. Andrew Sprong

Created on: November 05, 2009

Some things are precious beyond measure words in all of their forms are among them.

I could never sanction the removal of old or infrequently used words from English language dictionaries. The English language is an amalgam of a number of languages, and unlike Latin or Gaelic, it continues to grow. From the very beginning, strange words infiltrated the language and became part of the whole. English's success is due to its functional characteristic. While other languages offer few exceptions in grammar, spelling and usage, English incorporates variations from its Latin, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Gaelic roots. Thus, English is a rich language and becomes more so every day.

Why then would anyone want to make English weaker by removing old words that functioned in previous centuries to great effect? Anyone who has read the works of Shakespeare or the book Pride and Prejudice can see how people spoke and understood English in a much more eloquent fashion. The fact that we have lost such eloquence should shame us into trying to preserve something of our past. Our educators should be impassioned to teach children the proper way to speak the language, and our publishers should encourage the propagation of true verbal beauty.

Once editors of an unabridged dictionary take it upon themselves to remove old and unused words, we start the slide into linguistic obscurity. There are two ways languages may die. The first manner of death is through cultural, political, or religious mandate. Scottish Gaelic died under these sorts of pressures and though there may be a resurrection of the language through an infusion from its Irish cousin, I believe it will never be self-sustaining. The other far more insidious manner a language may die is through transformation. Unlike English, many languages perished because migrant populations diluted resident ones to the point that existing linguistic integrity could no longer be sustained. Some efforts are undertaken to preserve these languages, but death is usually the result when the spoken language of a region moves on from the previous one. Latin is an example of this manner of death.

If we were to start removing words that still have meaning to English speakers despite their archaic nature we would end up creating an unidentifiable branch of the language in a few hundred years. As it is, our language has drifted far enough from the mother tongue to inspire much confusion in dialog between people of various English-speaking cultures.

Some

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