"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Paul Lytle

"Words, as well as women, can be 'killed with kindness'."
-C. S. Lewis, "The Death of Words"

There is a very funny part in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, after time and space get jumbled, when a woman from the 1960s is speaking a man from the 1980s. The man happens, in this conversation, to use the term "black" in reference to the race of people originally from Africa. The woman, who is black, becomes offended. She explains that she is a "Negro;" she is not "black." Of course, the man must then explain that if he used the term "Negro" where he was from, he would likely be killed.

I could not help but wonder what someone from the 1990s would have said then. Probably that the acceptable term had become "African-American." But now that term seems to be falling out of favor, and I cannot say what is next. There was a time when "colored" was so accepted that the NAACP adopted it in its name. But then it started to be used as a derogatory term, and it had to change to something else.

The changing terminology when it comes to blacks is the most extreme example of politically-correct language that I can recall, but more minor examples are everywhere. Even ignoring the idiotic ones like "vertically-challenged" for short people or the hundreds of similar constructions, there is evidence everywhere. "Gay" and "queer" were not always synonyms, but the first was adapted by homosexuals to avoid the second. Now "gay" is almost as offensive. Native Americans have been known as such for some time, even if they weren't the first ones here (they immigrated too, only before Europeans did), but that's okay, because most African-Americans have never seen Africa. And since when is there such an animal as a "bison"?

There is no doubt that our language is constantly evolving. Some would try to point to this fact to prove that words have no meaning. After all, how can "gay" mean "homosexual" when it once meant "happy"? But I believe the truly interesting part is how the language seeks meaning even while some make concerted efforts to take meaning away.

Is Meaning Doubleplusungood?

One of my favorite novels is 1984 by George Orwell, and by far the best part of the novel is Newspeak, the language created by the totalitarian government to subjugate the people. The basic premise is that revolution is impossible if the population has no words to describe their dissatisfaction with the government. But it goes beyond that, because you would not even be able to think of revolution if you did not have a word for it. Even in your mind you express yourself in language - you think "I am sad" (or something to the same effect) when you are sad. But what if you do not have a word for sad? The idea behind Newspeak is that it is impossible to be sad without the word "sad" or some word that means the same thing. Take away the word, and you take away the emotion. They have done away with the word "bad." Now you must say "ungood."

These are minor examples, but the end goal is much broader. Words like "free," according to the appendix of 1984, "could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds.' It could not be used in its old sense of 'politically free.'" C. S. Lewis summed up the theory more concisely than I in "The Death of Words" when he said, "Men do not long continue to think what they have forgotten how to say."

Orwell brilliantly created the concept, but the idea is supposed to strike horror into the reader. It is a dark form of brainwashing that is self-perpetuating. Once Newspeak is fully in place, there can be no hope of rehabilitation except to completely discard your native tongue and create a new one from absolutely nothing. Even then, it would take generations for words like "revolution" to come back, because the founders of the new language would have no thought to create the word in the first place. The concept is utterly erased from their consciousness, so how could it return simply by discarding Newspeak?

The idea would make you shiver when you read the book, and yet modern America embraces the concept completely. We have created the term "African-American" not because of the meaning of the individual words. Again, most African-Americans have never been to Africa, so the word is used in its absolutely loosest meaning, no more concrete than if I was to declare myself an Eden-American, since my ancestors (Adam and Eve) originally came from Eden. No, not for that was it created, but because "black" had become too offensive.

"Black" has gained a meaning that is not desirable, and so the word is removed from acceptable language. We have not adopted "unwhite," but the premise is the same. "Queer" is too meaningful, and so homosexuals adopt a word which already possesses a meaning they would like - "gay," which then meant happy. Instead of a synonym for "strange" or "different," we are asked to think of a synonym for "happy."

Can we see how "bad" has been taken away from us and replaced with "ungood?"

This is no accident. We might not be trying to weaken the language as a whole, but we are trying to weaken the part that offends us. We want to weaken "black" or "queer" or something else, and so we change the term. But we must understand that once we do the old term will become weakened, and so does the new one.

For example, the word "queer," I assert, has absolutely no meaning in English anymore. Once it meant "strange," and it was a good British-sounding word for the thought you were trying to express. It is something that Sherlock Holmes might say when he is deep in thought. It was a good word.

Then its meaning was bent to become a derogatory word for homosexuals. It took on a second meaning, but no longer could the first meaning be expressed without the second interfering. No longer could you say, "He is acting queerly," without others thinking that he must be acting as a homosexual might.

But then we attempted to bend the word back. To call a homosexual "queer" was so rejected by society that it was no longer even used in a derogatory sense. The trouble is, the word could not be repaired into its first meaning. The second meaning, since rejected, had so weakened the first meaning that both were lost in the shuffle. You cannot use the word "queer" in conversation anymore and be understood clearly. You will have to inevitably define the term immediately after uttering it. The word is completely without meaning.

The Guilty

Politically-correct speech is most used by the Left in our society. It is from them that we pick up terms like "African-American," "Sanitation Engineer" for garbage man, or "special" for anyone who cannot read properly. These examples have been rightfully criticized by many. But there are others that have passed unnoticed.

"Rights" is a most overused term. "Patient's bill of rights." "Your rights as a consumer." What these have actually done is weaken our understanding of Rights which are God-given. After all, how important must you believe your Right to Speech is if you use the same term when talking about your "right to have a good mattress"? Even phrases like "right to vote" may turn out harmful. Everyone says it, but does anyone really believe that voting is an unalienable right, endowed by our Creator, equal to Life, Liberty, and Property? Do we really think that the masses should really decide every detail of complicated trade policies? If so, I can't think of a government that doesn't infringe on this right, since not even America is a Democracy (we are a Democratic Republic, for those of us whom public schooling has failed).

The abortion debate has sparked two more. Listen: people who oppose abortion are not against choice, and people who believe in abortion are not against life. The sides simply have a different view of when life begins. One side is right and the other wrong, and I certainly have my own opinion, but when life begins is the question here, not that one side hates life and the other side hates choice. We try to soften the language with terms like "pro-life" and "pro-choice," and in doing so we shrink the words "life" and "choice" down so that they only apply to abortion.

Let me go farther. Pro-life people are generally not completely pro-life, and the pro-choice movement really loathes true choice. For example, those who oppose abortion are generally in favor of the death penalty. Those are legitimate positions, and not contradictory, but let's not say that we are for life at all costs if we favor execution of murderers. Also the Left will oppose choice when it comes to school vouchers or barring gays from joining the Boy Scouts. Those choices should not be allowed, according to the pro-choice amongst us.

The politically-correct wave has actually come full circle to wash over the very people who started it. When is the last time you heard a Liberal refer to himself as a Liberal? It should not be such a bad thing, especially since its root is in the Latin liber, which also spawned "liberty." The word once referred to people we now know as "Conservative," but it was bent to serve the Left. But a second meaning has bent "Liberal," one synonymous with "Communist," according to Dennis Miller in The Rants. So while Conservatives will proudly proclaim their Conservative nature, Liberals will speak of how Progressive they are.

We often speak of how harmful clichés are, but few understand why. It is because clichés destroy the meaning of the actual words said to invest the meaning in the phrase instead. Here is an example: everyone has heard that a man "cannot have his cake and eat it too." Let us examine the actual words found in the phrase. You can't have a cake and then eat it? You cannot? In fact, you must have a cake before you eat it, otherwise what will you eat? The original phrase was that you cannot "eat your cake and have it too," but sometime in the last few centuries it was turned around. We do not notice that the words make no sense because words in a cliché have no meaning.

There are minor examples as well. "Gentleman" used to describe an economic segment of the population. Now it is a man who holds a door open for a woman. "Modern" now means "civilized" instead of telling us of a time period. The list is endless.

In This Corner - English

So far I have spoken at length about how our language is weakening. It is. Political correctness should have torn it to shreds by now except for one fascinating development:

The language fights back.

It's true. Going back to my first example - why have blacks had to change what they call themselves from "colored" to "Negro" to "black" to "African-American" and back? Shouldn't the first attempt to soften the language have worked?

The simple fact is (and I hate to disagree with C. S. Lewis on this point, but I do), when there is no word to express a meaning, one is created. The reason that blacks will never be able to do away with derogatory terms is that the language needs one, and so one will always appear. We stopped using the word "Commie" a few years ago, and "Liberal" is now taking its place, which is why Liberals are shunning the word in favor of "Progressive."

This is the reason that, as brilliant as it is, Newspeak will never work. In 1984, there was no "bad," but there was "ungood," and it worked just as well. If someone wants to express hatred toward blacks, and he only has the word "donut" to use, then "donut" will become a derogatory word toward blacks.

I do not condone the use of racist terms, but the purpose of language is to make room for the ideas and make them known. A language is worthless if it can only hold certain thoughts and throw others away. Racism needs words too, and the sentiment cannot be controlled by removing the words.

To say it another way - the problem with Newspeak is that it assumes that the meaning comes from the words, that belief is nothing but conditioning of the language itself. What we find, however, is that meaning does not come from language, but language comes from the meaning. When there is no longer a way to express a meaning, the language creates one.

Some words refused to be changed. "Beautiful" is one. Modern man likes to say that everyone is beautiful on the inside, or modern art is beautiful, or everything is beautiful, or that beauty is only in the eye of the beholder, but for most of us, the word retains its natural meaning, which is something that is extraordinarily pleasant to look upon. We say that a woman is beautiful only if she is physically pleasing on the eye, and very rarely do we step beyond that. When we say that a landscape is beautiful, we speak nothing of the local ecology and the different scientific processes going on all around us, but because it is simply pretty.

So What's the Deal-ee-oh?

So the language will heal itself, so should we really worry about harming it? There are several reasons why we should.

First, given enough evolution in language, the past becomes harder to understand. We now need translations of Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales not because they were written in another language, but because English has changed too much. We still have the translations, of course, but those periods become disconnected to us. Chaucer didn't live too much before Shakespeare, but Shakespeare seems nearer to us than does Chaucer. It is merely an aesthetic point, truly, but our past should be near to us, and translations are separations.

Second, we should seek to preserve what is beautiful in the language. It simply seems more right for a Sherlock Holmes-type to say that something is "queer" rather than "strange." Or would Pip have been as excited about joining the upper middle-class as he was about becoming a gentleman?

Lastly, it takes time for healing to occur. We are now without certain words that may be helpful to us. "Theory" and "philosophical" have almost become negative words for us, and we have no words to replace them. "Political theory" used to be the study of exactly what a government should do. Now, if you speak of political theory, someone will tell you to concentrate on the "real world" as though theory and philosophy have nothing to do with our everyday lives.

"Liberal" was hijacked by the Left, and then left to languish as a new form of "Communist," and so now we are left to calling people like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson "Classical Liberals." It is a decent term, except that "Liberal" now means "Left-leaning," and so "Classical Liberals" are often confused to be "old Socialists," which is exactly opposite of what they truly are. Classical Liberals loathe Socialism; they in fact think government at best a necessary evil. The same term here, "liberal," at once means two conflicting things. So now every time the phrase is mentioned, it must be explained. The words are almost worthless, good only as a label, but having nothing to do with the actual meaning.

Conclusion

In the end, we should be concerned, but not overly so. The language will continue to evolve, weakening in some areas and strengthening in others. We should be aware of what is happening so that we may fight against the weakening of the language, but only while we keep in mind English has been around a good long time, and it has survived much. It will be just fine. After all, if the language could handle Eliza Doolittle, we needn't be so uptight when we emulate Henry Higgins.

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