Words on the Move

What Hacker News says

1. EdgeExplorerJan 2024
   All language is "random stuff arbitrary people make up".

   "Rules" are just discovered patterns in the arbitrariness of language, convenient ways to capture and communicate how most people within a certain linguistic context express a certain idea. They are point-in-time observations of an evolving natural system, sharing much more in common with aphorisms like "April showers bring May flowers" than with the law of gravity or the tax code.

   The English language is whatever English speakers and hearers agree it is. No linguistic "authority" can stop the inexorable evolution of language.

   (Language evolution has dramatically slowed, but that's because of the printing press, the radio, the television, and the Internet creating massively larger and more durable linguistic communities than ever existed before, not because of authority.)

   And to the original point of this thread... all of these so-called names for groups are nonsense. "A group of owls is called a parliament"... by whom? No one ever. Thus a group of owls is not called a parliament or a stare or a hoot or anything else cute. A group of owls doesn't have a name because owls don't form groups. In the unlikely event someone discovered a large group of owls together, I am quite certain they would call it a "flock", no matter what someone who thought they were clever wrote in a book.

   Yeah, this is a trigger for me. (:

   Dr. Geoff Lindsey is a great reference. Another is John McWhorter, specifically his books The Power of Babel and Words on the Move.

   Linguists are scientists of the natural world, not law-makers.

   Show morethread
2. schinaziJan 2023
   This morphing of LOL is used as an example in the very interesting and enjoyable book "Words on the Move: Why English Won't – and Can't – Sit Still (Like, Literally)" by John McWhorter.

   https://bookshop.org/p/books/words-on-the-move-why-english-w...

   thread
3. burlesonaFeb 2021
   > I am not writing this thinking of right-wing America as my audience. I will make no appearances on any Fox News program to promote it. People of that world are welcome to listen in. But I write this to two segments of the American populace. Both are what I consider to be my people, which is what worries me so much about what is going on. One segment is the New York Times-reading, National Public Radio-listening people of any color who have innocently fallen under the impression that pious, unempirical virtue-signaling about race is a form of moral enlightenment and political activism, and ever teeter upon becoming card-carrying Third Wave Antiracists themselves. The other is those black people who have innocently fallen under the misimpression that for us only, cries of weakness constitute a kind of strength, and that for us only, what makes us interesting, what makes us matter, is a curated persona as eternally victimized souls, ever carrying and defined by the memories and injuries of our people across four centuries behind us, ever “unrecognized,” ever “misunderstood,” ever unpaid.

   I think this is key to understanding this article, and perhaps he should have led with it.

   I tend to think of myself as a "classical liberal" in the sense that I value freedom, and that I believe that tolerance and freedom of expression are foundational to a healthy democratic society.

   I think the "thought police" aspect of what McWhorter calls "third wave antiracism" is concerning. It reminds me of McCarthyism, and I have imagined that this is unsustainable and will eventually dissipate. But of course, that is not guaranteed.

   > However, they and everyone else should also realize: I know quite well that white readers will be more likely to hear out views like this when written by a black person, and consider it nothing less than my duty as a black person to write it.

   I think this is correct as well. It seems right to be that we should primarily be looking to people from the black community as thought leaders on these issues. Their debate, based in first-hand experience, is more interesting and noteworthy to me.

   McWhorter also contributes to a group called 1776 Unites (https://1776unites.com), which is a group of black leaders and scholars generally writing counter narratives to the mainstream, or what McWhorter has called "third wave antiracism." Again, as a "classical liberal," I find their ideas worth considering.

   ---

   A side note, I have a copy of McWhorter's book "Words on the Move," and I highly recommend it :)

   Show morethread
4. foscoApr 2018
   If you enjoy this article you may enjoy Russ Roberts interview of John McWhorter [0] where they discuss the evolution of language and Johns book "Words on the move" . give it a listen... approx 1 hour (the transcript is there which is also probably faster but I enjoyed the charisma and enthusiasm.)

   [0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/08/john_mcwhorter.html

   thread
5. tptacekSep 2017
   Practically every other episode of Lexicon Valley, John McWhorter's linguistics podcast, is about how that's not what's happening.

   http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley.html

   He has a whole book about it: _ Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)_. Check it out.

   Not only do languages evolve and change over time (and that's not a symptom of everything moving towards some imagined mushy center), but some of those "changes" are illusory. For instance, a pretty large contingent of people on the Internet seem to believe that English lacks a gender-neutral pronoun, because a group of people in the 19th century made up a rule that "they" must be singular. Since that didn't happen in our lifetime, we assume it to be a core attribute of the language. But it's entirely artificial.

   Show morethread
6. rgoulterMay 2023
   > If we can’t say that “comprised of” is objectively wrong, then what _can_ we say about English?

   I haven't read John McWhorter's "Words on the Move", but he addresses this question there, and this review has a summary:

   https://byfaithweunderstand.com/2017/06/15/review-john-mcwho...

   - Isolated cases of 'incorrect' usage can be considered 'incorrect'.

   - Widespread usage that's different would be better described as a shift in language.

   Show morethread