OSC defends 'dumb words'

Orson Scott Card is seldom more entertaining than when he puts on his
erudite hat, and he does it here in fine good form. This time, he defends
the use of dumb or banished words which, if overused, serve only to
demonstrate their popularity or utility. He argues that words die when they
are no longer relevant, not when they are overused or unpopular. He even
pulls one out that I've never in my life heard of (you'll recognize it when
you see it).

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2011-05-19.shtml

> The June/July *Reader's Digest* had a delightful section on "The *World's
> Dumbest* Criminals, Celebrities, Lawsuits, Tweets, and more!" Their
> prediction that I'd "laugh," I'd "cry," I'd "feel so smart" was amply
> fulfilled.
>
> Nowhere did I feel smarter than on page 125, where they listed "Umm ...
> Dumb Words." Apparently they swallowed whole a listing from Lake Superior
> State University's 2011 "List of Banished Words."
>
> Now, it would be hard to imagine anything dumber than for any university to
> presume to "banish" words. Words are created through consensus of the
> speakers of a language, and they rarely submit to authority.
>
> Even in countries like France and Spain, where an academy makes fiats about
> which words may or may not be used in print, the futility of the French ban
> on English loanwords like "le weekend" has made a joke of such rulings.
>
> If any institution in the English-speaking world should ever have authority
> over our language, I suspect Lake Superior State University would not be
> among the first 500 choices for that role.
>
> One might suppose that the *Reader's Digest* was including Lake Superior
> State University among their list of "dumbest" for even making the attempt,
> but no -- *Reader's Digest* was actually inviting us to heap scorn upon
> those who use the "banished" words.
>
> They are mistaken, for without exception, it is the *Reader's Digest*which is dumb for buying such claptrap.
>
> For instance, LSSU's list would ban the phrase "the American people," with
> the explanation *"Aren't all Americans people?"*
>
> No, I must reply, but not all people are Americans, and since "American" in
> this context serves as an adjective, "the American people" serves to
> distinguish us from, say, "people" or "the Mayan people." The phrase "the
> _____ people" is a common one, and there is no less reason to plug
> "American" into the adjective slot than any other identifier.
>
> Fortunately, however, when I look at the LSSU website, I find that this
> phrase was nominated by mere civilians, not by lofty academics, and there is
> apparently no effort to assure that the nominators make any sense at all.
>
> Likewise, someone wants to ban the *film term "backstory"* on the grounds
> that "a perfectly good word already exists -- *history.*"
>
> Well, not really. *Backstory* has a specific meaning: the events in a
> character's past which explain his present actions. His *history*(actually,
> *biography* would be more appropriate) would include vast amounts of
> irrelevant information. *Backstory* is a precise term that is in constant
> use in the world of film because there is constant need for it.
>
> In fact, this is a principle of language formation that would-be
> word-banners never seem to comprehend (because, presumably, they are
> "dumb"): There are no needless words. If a word is not needed, it falls into
> disuetude (like, for instance, *disuetude*) and nobody understands it
> anymore. It dies.
>
> Terms that are in common use are there for a reason. "BFF," for instance,
> is mocked on the LSSU site (and in *Reader's Digest*), but one must
> remember that its usage has shifted from the world of sincere 13-year-old
> girls ("best friends forever") to more cynical older people who use it
> ironically. But the irony utterly escapes the LSSU correspondent who
> nominated the term ... because she is, alas, "dumb."
>
> The word "epic" has gone through a vogue as a replacement for "awesome,"
> and so it is overused and trivialized, but so what? This is a self-punishing
> offense. Some words survive such overuse *("cool," "wonderful")* and
> others become ridiculous or quaint *("groovy," "keen").* Who would be so
> "dumb" as to try to ban a term, when it serves so well to identify
> unoriginal people?
>
> Then someone goes after the term *"man up"* as "A stupid phrase when
> directed at men. Even more stupid when directed at women."
>
> After so many years in which men have been told *not* to act like men, I
> rather like it. "Be tough," the phrase is saying. "Take it," "Do your job,"
> "Stop whining." Quite a lot to pack into a mere pair of words. Nothing
> "dumb" about it.
>
> Plus, I like the overtones of telling a child to grow up into an adult
> role. This is what carries over into the phrase's use with women. Besides,
> it's also a term worthy of the best feminist tradition. Haven't feminists
> been demanding that women "man up" all along?
>
> They also go after "viral," and I admit that I'm also weary of hearing
> things described as "going viral." But the phrase has an honest history, and
> accurately describes a phenomenon that exists only on the internet. To say
> that a video, news story, or picture has "gone viral" conveys something that
> can be said economically in no other way.
>
> One might as well complain about the overuse of the term "epidemic" -- it
> isn't overused when you use it to describe an epidemic. There *is* no term
> for going viral except "going viral," and so to ban the phrase is to attempt
> to ban talking about the phenomenon.
>
> But the truth is that there is nothing so "dumb" as to expect language to
> obey the preferences of any particular group of people. I recently heard
> someone disdain the phrase "the single most important" as completely
> redundant. "If something is the most important then it is, by definition,
> single," the complainer would have us believe.
>
> Such complaints merely reveal the complainer's ignorance of language. We
> need intensifiers to try to raise an idea out of the soup of ordinary
> conversation. If you say, "This is the most important idea to emerge in the
> past year" your listeners are likely to tune it out, or reduce it in meaning
> to "This is an important idea," because of so many similar claims.
>
> Adding the word "single" is like adding "very" -- it tries to push the idea
> a little harder in order to get more of the listener's attention. "This is
> the single most important idea to emerge in the past year" is more emphatic,
> and a perfectly legitimate thing for speakers of a language to do.
>
> That's why we have such redundancies or absurdities as "the most unique
> artist working today" or "that's a whole different thing" or even "that's a
> whole 'nother thing." This is simply how language works to try to combat
> overuse, by tacking on intensifiers.
>
> I remember when our youngest was just learning how to speak. She came in
> from outdoors on a winter day and announced, "It's soakin' cold outside!"
> She had heard the word "soakin'" used as an intensifier with "wet," and
> shifted it to intensify "cold" as well. Why not?
>
> After all, the French took the intensifier "step" (*pas*) from phrases
> like "Don't move a step" and began to apply it to all negatives -- "Don't
> eat a step," "Don't speak a step."
>
> If that wasn't absurd enough, *pas* has become so ubiquitous that it is
> not longer necessary to include the negative (*ne*), so that to say
> "don't" you have merely to say *pas*.
>
> "Step" has become the universal negative. Absurd? Indeed -- yet that's how
> words shift usage over time as languages evolve.
> So what's really "dumb" is to waste time calling people who speak
> differently from your preferences "dumb."
>
> Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
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