The Death of Words (2)

        Don’t look for Part (1) in this blog—C.S.Lewis wrote that back in 1944. This post corroborates Lewis’ opinion. In fact, Rose Macaulay was right, too, about words ‘now used only in a bad sense’. One of Lewis’ examples was ‘gentleman’. At one time a man either was a gentleman or he wasn’t. The word began to die when it started to need modifiers: a ‘true’ gentleman, a ‘real’ gentleman. 

        A personal example is appropriate. I recently posted on a blog, a favourite quotation of mine from the prophet Isaiah: ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’ (Isa.55:1) In less than twenty-four hours, I felt compelled to take it down because ‘Ho’ no longer means (in spite of Merriam-Webster) ‘an interjection used especially to attract attention to something specified’, for example ‘land ho’. 

      There is a difficulty inherent in some families of words, especially those attempting to describe wonderful or amazing persons or experiences. By the very nature of their use, they become old fast. If you had a great snow boarding run, it was ‘wicked’. If an acquaintance won the lottery, it might be ‘sick’, meaning you were envious. 

        There is a word now in current everyday language, that really offends my high school Latin lessons. Courtrooms look for credible witnesses. How has ‘incredible’ ever come to mean amazing or spectacular or wonderful? In fact, I have sat through several recent sermons in which God was described time after time as ‘incredible’! If God is incredible, the English language has lost its meaning. I want a credible God. 

        The most important word that Lewis felt was in danger was ‘Christian’. He feared that it was losing its power whenever it became simply a modifier, as in ‘Christian moral standards’, or ‘Christian name’. He thought it was on its way to meaning just ‘good’. In a way he was right. Current usage leans toward the modified ‘Christ-follower’, reminiscent of the ‘true’ gentleman. In the wider secular world, he was wrong—the word ‘Christian’ is being expunged—the world wants nothing to do with it. 

        So, how do matters stand today? Yes, words are dying (even ordinary, non-comparative ones). We can think of at least four contributing factors: an exuberant search for superlatives, a contrarian use of opposites, a sly use of euphemisms, and an uninformed, uncaring misuse of otherwise precise words. 

        Even the Bible complains of this problem. Isaiah (again) shows the partial decay of the word ‘liberal’ when he says, ‘The vile person shall no more be called liberal.’ (32:5). Human nature wants something bigger, better, greater, cuter, worse, more horrific, or just plain new. Then it deploys these changes into the language and drives the old words into their graves. It always has.