The Politics of Meaning and Usage in English (II)

For instance, the word “dilapidated” is derived from “lapis,” which is Latin for stone. It is now used of deplorable condition. “Alcohol” was an Arabic word for a substance that women used to darken and thicken their eyelashes; today it means liquor that intoxicates. “Edify” is the Latin word for “build” (a meaning still present […]

For instance, the word “dilapidated” is derived from “lapis,” which is Latin for stone. It is now used of deplorable condition. “Alcohol” was an Arabic word for a substance that women used to darken and thicken their eyelashes; today it means liquor that intoxicates. “Edify” is the Latin word for “build” (a meaning still present in the word “edifice”); today it means to improve through teaching and enlightenment. “Hysteria” is derived from the Greek word for womb; now it means a state of violent mental agitation or extreme emotion. In American English, “hysterical” is becoming synonymous with “very funny.” And “ridiculous,” which used to mean “very funny” (and still does in some contexts) is now commonly used to mean “unacceptable” in both American and British English.

 

Usage patterns also mutate over time. For instance, “each other” used to be a reciprocal pronoun that referred only to two people, and it was often understood that it was different from “one another,” which was supposed to refer to three or more people. That distinction no longer exists. In modern English usage, both phrases are used interchangeably.

It was also considered bad grammar to end sentences with prepositions. So instead of writing “I don’t remember the name of the drug he was addicted to,” grammarians of the previous generation would insist that the sentence should be rendered as, “I don’t remember the name of the drug to which he was addicted.”

This rule emerged from a conscious, if unimaginative, mimicry of the syntactical structure of Latin, the language of science and scholarship in Europe until the 17th century. But, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the “no-preposition-at-the-end-of-a-sentence” rule is counter-intuitive, even senseless, and antithetical to the natural rhythm of the English language. It’s no surprise that people had a hard time obeying it.  Today most people end sentences with prepositions, and grammarians don’t seem to be bothered by this any longer.

So meanings and usages are, for the most part, context-specific and historically contingent. If that is the case, why do people fuss over “bad” usage? I think the reason that changes grate on people is that they see usage as making sense according to the grammatical rules that are established in their own minds. These rules, of course, reflect those rules generally accepted in their linguistic environments.

However, it seems that the rules of grammar are changing less quickly in other parts of the English-speaking world than they are in the United States. As my British friend said, “From where I’m standing, people in the US seem to be playing a game of yo-yo to which we Brits have not been invited.”

Note, though, that Americans have done more to extend the semantic and communicative frontiers and capabilities of the English language in recent times than the Brits have. The Brits should actually be grateful that Americans speak English. Without Americans, English would have receded from the world stage in the same manner that French and other once powerful European languages did.

The strength of the English language derives from the material and symbolic power of its native speakers, particularly Americans, the flexibility of its grammatical rules, and the rich diversity of the sources of its vocabulary. Almost every language in the world has contributed to the vocabulary of the English language.

Well, the foregoing is essentially the story of the battle between “what ought to be” (i.e., the snooty prescriptions of professional grammarians) and “what is” (i.e., popular usage patterns among everyday folks) in meaning and language usage. But that’s a grotesque simplification. Actually, the “what ought to be” is more often than not aggregated and codified from the “what is” to produce the “what ought to be.”

So usage rules proceed in dialectical triads: the “what ought to be” is often first instituted as the norm, as the thesis. The “what is” then emerges as an unorganized, unconscious antithesis, and the resolution of this antagonism often gives birth to a new set of rules, which then become the new thesis that grammarians preserve and hold up as the standards but which are ultimately subverted by a new antithesis, and on and on. Call it grammatical dialectics, if you like.

Q and A

What is the difference between “besides” and “beside”?

Answer

Besides is an adverb, which functions as a synonym for “in addition to,” “likewise,” “as well as” or “anyway” and “in any case” (examples: “Besides being kind, he is also a shy person,” “I don’t want to travel by air; besides, I can’t afford it”). So, wherever you can use the phrases “in addition to,” “likewise,”  “as well as,” “anyway,” and “in any case,” you can also use “besides.” They are mutually interchangeable. “Beside,” on the other hand, is a preposition that indicates position in relation to something or somebody. It can almost always replace phrases like “next to,” “at the side of,” “compared to” or “alongside” (examples: “he sat beside me,” “King Kong looks handsome beside him”).