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Date:         Sun, 11 Oct 1992 00:00:09 BST
From:         Graham Toal <gtoal@IBMPCUG.CO.UK>
Subject:      Blast from the past
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

in an idle moment today I was browsing some old netnews...  thought you'd
like to see how little the nets have changed in 10 years...  (btw note
the guy who flames 'bad spelling and grammer' (sic).  Nothing changes)
---
Date:  20 May 1981 13:53 cdt
From:  VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan)
Subject:  influencing the language

It would be nice if some of the MIT community (who seem at times to
dominate these lists) would recall that there are indeed members of
the lists who do not use such terms as foo, hack, frob, moby and mung
in their everyday language; that those people probably have their own
jargon (many folk seem to use "fred" where an MIT'er would use "foo");
but particularly that some parts of the MIT jargon (I have in mind
"win" and "lose") are also in the standard language with different
semantics and are therefore likely to be misinterpreted by the rest of
us.
   (A word to the wise: "to hack" and its derivatives have strongly
different semantics in most of the world than at MIT, such that one
would not willingly admit to being a hacker - especially not on an
interview!  In industry, the practice we call "hackery" is the
antithesis of good design.)

------------------------------

Date: 20 May 1981 1441-EDT
From: Steven J. Zeve <ZEVE at RUTGERS>
Subject: Language, influencing it and the death of english

     It is possible to influence another person's language, I have
done it unintentionally.  I believe that slang is transmitted that
way, you hear someone say something often enough and you pick up the
context.  Once you pick up the context of the word, you start to use
it (I spread the term MUNG that way at my last job).

     The "death of the English language" is being announced somewhat
prematurely, but it may well be inevitable; assuming of course that
what you mean when you say "English" is English as we currently
speak/write it.  For example, compare current American, or British,
English with the English of 1600, there are some serious differences.
Better yet, compare current English with the English that Chaucer or
Mallory spoke/wrote!  As anyone studying linguistics will tell you,
languages evolve (or devolve depending on your point of view.

     The French system tries to defy this evolution, but I think they
are pushing a lost cause.  When the general population decides it
needs a new word, it will get a new word.  That is why the fashionable
English words like "hot-dog", "weekend", and many others are creeping
into French.

     The real problems in American English, as I see the situation,
are 1) the loss of clarity and preciseness caused general misuse of
certain words, 2) the loss of understandability caused by poor grammer
and incorrect spelling.  For instance, what is the difference between
libel and slander? or between comprise and compose?  I find both of
these pairs of words misused fairly consistently, so consistently that
the language may well lose their difference.  Although this won't be a
disaster, it will create some confusion until new words are created to
maintain the more precise definitions.

     If you think that spelling and grammer aren't important, try
reading something where the spelling is really bad, or where the
grammer is really wrong.  After spending a long time figuring out what
the writer meant to say, you will realize how much more quickly you
would have gotten the meaning if the grammer and spelling had been
better.

     L. Sprague DeCamp wrote a very readable article on the subject of
language evolution.  He was describing what factors to consider if you
wanted to use a "realistic" future English in a science fiction story.
He also showed examples of how modern English differed from older
"versions".

        steve z.

p.s.  Left to my own devices, I would guess that "poisoness" is a word
used to describe a woman who feeds you poisonous, or maybe a dangerous
ESS system.  I figured that one out from context, but context isn't
always available.  Sometimes the context itself depends on the word
that is incorrect, or on a poorly worded/constructed piece of a
sentence.

p.p.s.  If I don't quit now, I'll spend all day trying to fix my
spelling, wording, and grammer.

------------------------------

End of HUMAN-NETS Digest

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