on the breakdown of language
All my life I’ve had a large vocabulary. Yet, I never considered my word bank to be any larger than anyone else’s until someone pointed it out. And they didn’t just comment on its existence, they pointing out came with a healthy side of ridicule and general bad-feelingness and, what took me years to figure out, a large fountain drink of envy and low self-esteem.
Now, people still take energy out of their day to point out when I use big words, like its my fault or I’m trying to be something I’m not (which is the worst accusation in the history of the world, in my opinion). Like it’s wrong that I should know something they don’t, like complex, multi-syllabic word formulations don’t belong in their personal word-cloud, and I should keep mine hidden away from them. Like at some point in their lives they decided they learned all the words they’ll need for the rest of their life and I shouldn’t remind them of that false, false assumption.
So what do we (my generation) do instead of vocabulary-expansion - for I’m just as guilty as everyone else in attempts to match my word cloud with important people in my life. We instead learn and incorporate “new” words like sick, clutch, YOLO, plur, FOMO…The constantly changing, never used for more than a couple months, and full of “meaning” that once you scratch the surface betrays the complete lack of meaning. These words are necessary for everyday communication, but to me, are eroding what’s left of linguistic richness and complexity.
For that’s what “big words” actually are - complex. Try defining epistemology in two words. You can’t. Five words maybe? Nope. You need at least a sentence, maybe two to shallowly describe the meaning of an entire school of thought to someone who’s never run a skepticism critique or sat through a logic lecture. These people don’t understand the beautiful concept that one would can capture and represent and symbolize so much context and so much thought. That it’s definition is nuanced and subtle, and when used correctly, so effective. Which raises an interesting point. In America, where I would posit this sort of language degradation is happening the fastest and on the largest scale, a small population of my contemporaries continue to enrich their vocabulary and immerse themselves in literature everyone should be reading - but they can’t escape the reductionistic trap either.
I would say policy debate had the largest and most lasting impact on me than any other activity I’ve ever done so far in my life. Yet my largest stumbling block in the format was learning its language. Arguments have labels like “DA,” “K,” “case,” and large philosophical schools of thought are reduced to “cap,” “dehum,” “skep,” or “fem IR.” To win a debate, you must posses working knowledge of not only the ideas themselves, but the correct phraseology to express them that correlates with the current trends. Any deviation from the script earns you a loss, even if you debated the concept better than the other team.
So obviously this is a problem that plagues every generation and most likely comes about as a means to demarcate the younger from the older, but I believe the language degradation happening today is the most insidious, threatening, and perhaps non-reversible process ever to occur. Because those not subscribing to it fully are ridiculed, ostracized, and thrown out of the pack. Because the simple act of trying is no longer valued and respected. Because insecurity spurts intellectual rejection, which is worse than any other rejection in the long run for social growth.
Because to me, when someone makes fun of me for glibly saying “rectify your situation” instead of “gurl, go fix yo-self,” they’re giving up on just that. The pursuit of knowledge and the continuous expansion of something like your vocabulary is a form of self-betterment. It’s a commitment to strive for something higher, better. It’s an attempt to add layers to communication, not strip them away.
But I see daily the degradation of communication. I see that my friends can’t muster anything more than “bowls?” “kk” and “lighter, batch, bong.” How when expressing something exhilarating, titillating, earth-shatteringly awesome, all we say is “that was cool” or “dope.” How people’s personalities are reduced to how “chill” you are, which is nothing but apathetic. This scares me, honestly. It scares me because I fundamentally disagree with it. It resonates as “wrong” in my in a way not many other things do.
I think the most important knowledge the artistic community ever imparted on me was one sentence. It sums up the artistic quest and is something everyone should abide by: never settle for mediocrity. But no one my age cares, because at this point, we’ve all forgotten the definition of mediocrity entirely.
