On Language
I was irked to see a tweet “Learned a new word! Pseudoarboricity: the number of pseudoforests needed to cover a graph. Yes, it is actually a word and so is pseudoforest.” The idea that some letter combinations are “actual words” implies that others are “not actual words,” and thus, that there is some authority who may tell me what letter combinations I am allowed to use or understand.
Balderdash. Adorkable balderdash, but balderdash nonetheless.
As any student of Orwell shall recall, the test of language is its comprehensibility, not its adhesion to some standard. As an author, I sometimes hear from people who believe themselves to be authorities, or who believe that they may select for me authorities as to the meanings of words, and who wish to tell me that my use of the word “threat” threatens their understanding, that the preface’s explicit discussion of the many plain meanings of the word is insufficient, or that my sentences are too long, comma-filled, dash deficient or otherwise Oxfordless in a way which seems to cause them to feel superior to me in a way they wish to, at some length, convey.
In fact, on occasion, they are irked. I recommend to them, and to you, “You Are What You Speak.”
I wish them the best, and fall back, if you’ll so allow, to a comment from another master of language, speaking through one of his characters:
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
Authority is granted by those who accept its dictates. That Donald Trump is leading the other Republican Presidential candidates in recent polls says much about how little it takes be granted authority, especially if one poses as an iconoclast. That said: if you can’t read a sentence aloud without pausing for breath, either punctuation or medical attention is advisable.