words rule

Have you ever thought about words? Not words in the grand scheme of huge dictionaries or vocabularies of languages or novels or even sentences - just words themselves. They are strange, aren't they? Where do they even come from, the words we choose to say on a daily basis? Why do I choose one word over another? And since when did "Kanye" become a verb?

The Washington Post ran this hilarious & fascinating article about the American Dialect Society's decision for word of the year and word of the decade ("google" wins for the decade, "tweet" takes the cake for the year 2009). Seriously, click that link.

My mind can't even wrap around the intricacies of language. So much can be said for just a few letters. In the article, there is this great part where words are described as the smallest time capsules. So much is implied about our culture when I think of "tweet" and so much implied for our generation by "google". I'm not arguing that these implications are necessarily good, I'm just saying that they are obvious and manage to be so from only about six letters. Pretty incredible.

There seems to be tension around the evolution of language in modern society. Is it benefiting us, or is it morphing us into beings only capable of expressing emotion through pop culture references?

Some in the article argue that our language is going to hell. I think there are some things that scare me about the transformation of our lexicon, but in general, I would disagree that it is being ruined. I will admit that I say "def" too much and have done other such things to abuse the English language, I'm sure. However, the fact that language is changing is incredible to me. We have the power to mold and transform our tools of expression. We are coming up with new words, new mediums for art, new definitions of things as we think of them and challenge them. That's exciting to me. When I write, I am constantly making choices to use certain words and not to use others. And I am living in an age where these words are daily being refined and toiled with or discarded altogether. It's a challenge, but it makes life super interesting. It makes me love language all the more.

(the video below shows some of the debate the ADS had in choosing the words of the decade and year. pretty entertaining)