The authorities should not seek to inhibit the evolution of the English language

Here is a an example of the type of conversation you overhear down the pub every day: "Listen to this, Bob, it says here in the paper that 'when neutrinos created at the Cern facility in Switzerland were sent through hundreds of miles of rock to a giant detector at the INFN-Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy, they arrived 20 billionths of a second faster than light would have done if it had travelled the same distance through a vacuum.' So that proves that the Special Theory of Relativity is gay and that Albert Einstein was a retard, doesn't it?" "On the contrary, Joe, I read about that experiment in another newspaper and, apparently, the long bunches of neutrinos used could introduce an error into the test and the findings are not proved because only a few facilities worldwide have the detectors needed to catch neutrinos and they have not, independently, confirmed the results. It is my assumption, therefore, that Italian laboratory's equipment is handicapped and the boffins at Cern don't realise that because they are such a bunch of mongs." "You reckon, do you Bob? And what do you know about sub-atomic particle physics then, you spazz?" "Not much, Joe, but I do know that Professor Stephen Hawking endorses Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, so would you call him a spazz as well?" "No, of course I wouldn't because he actually is a spastic, so that would be very unkind and hurtful." So what has that dialogue got to do with the price of beer, or indeed, the evolution of the English language? Well, recently, comedian Ricky Gervais was forced to apologise for using the word 'mong' on his Twitter feed after coming under intense pressure to do so from disability groups and others. (1) The word 'mong' is short for 'Mongoloid' and can be used as a derogatory term for people with Down's Syndrome and may, therefore, have the potential to cause offence to people with that condition, or to those who care for them. But was Gervais' criticism deserved? I'd say if he was directly mocking the afflicted, then it would have been, but the fact is that he was only using that word to describe normal people who act, or look, a bit like mongs. Words change their meanings all the time in the English language: 'moron', 'cripple', 'retarded', 'Mongoloid', 'handicapped' and 'spastic' used to be perfectly acceptable in polite society but they took on negative connotations and are now considered offensive in politically correct circles. Now we are expected to terms such as 'people with restricted mobility' and 'people with learning difficulties' which are much more cumbersome than the terms 'cripples' and 'retards'. The English language is still evolving and we now see the word 'gay', having first been a synonym for 'happy' often used to mean 'worthless', while it is still being used as a word that refers to homosexual men. Our manner of speech is not, and has never been, static and authorities such as government departments and charities should not seek to penalise people for keeping abreast with the inexorable evolution of our ever-changing language. Thank you. (1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk...