The Fall of the Word by John Ogden

In the beginning was The Word, and in the English language words may have found their grandest moment during the 18^th Century. Education, religion, and science were sufficiently valued as to lend subtlety and precision to verbal life. When Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, James Boswell and a collection of esthetes gathered at their London social club, it was the esteemed lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson who held the floor. Among the learned, eloquence was prized over other virtues and acuity of wit was indispensable. Now, in the early 21^st Century, spoken English is dying, the victim of a thousand cuts, of multiple assaults on its beauty and utility.

In Christian theology, The Word stated God’s intention to create the earth. By assigning the origin of language to God, early Christians set a blueprint for His communication to living men and women. Although prayers were offered by polytheists before the advent of Christ, a certain expectation was held by those who adopted his doctrine: that petitioning God would signal the deity to issue instructions to the supplicant on solving questions he found insoluble. Given the challenges of disease, war, natural disaster, and the quest for food and shelter, humans doubtless considered themselves deeply subordinate beings and their invocations of a higher power were uttered to elicit gifts of good fortune. So, it is unlikely that English developed much until the essential business of living became manageable and the study of an advancing society was a viable pursuit.

Along with the failure to perpetuate a richly versatile English is the decline of formal Christian worship, and perhaps these phenomena are related. Parishioners have always been asked to utter prayers and sing hymns. Presumably, it is not the exertion required of such activities, although I wouldn’t swear to it, but rather the commitment that makes us balk. In an age of narcissism, the self and its manifold options matter most. Why would a person commit her faith in a communal setting to something that won’t yield a tangible product, especially in light of the easy analogy of a teacher’s lecture or a parent’s diatribe to a clergyman’s homily: words, words, words, and moralistic preaching as well. Can one born after the year 2000 be expected to sit still and receive exhortations that seem to underscore one’s ethical complacency? The endless disputes in contemporary life about what constitutes moral conduct render a priest’s messages entirely hypothetical. For the young, “The words of the prophets are (no longer) written on the subway walls”, but now arrive in the form of a Twitter feed or a text. This is not to say that soldiers, firemen, nurses, teachers and others who serve can’t speak forcefully. But generally, inane words have wider appeal because they are altogether void of moral import.

I have long believed that England during the Jacobean era, despite the best efforts of the Stuart monarchs, advanced her culture in ways equal to or surpassing those of the Renaissance. The Enlightenment forged a rapprochement between faith and reason that would guide the country and her domains through the colonization of America, the regicide of Charles I, an eleven-year takeover by the Puritans, and the rough seas of monarchical Restoration. Throughout the 17^th Century, Science and Christian faith somehow co-existed among the populace in the teeth of assaults on Anglicanism from the Cromwell crowd and the restive popish minority. The exalted language of the lectern, passionate beyond mundane speech, led inhabitants of towns and villages to embrace its messages. Reading opportunities, scarce as they were in the provinces, were widely supplied by The Holy Bible. Adopting its mystical narratives, people also accepted Christian tenets from fear of divine reprisal. In addition, it is manifestly clear that organized religion supported formal education, as is evidenced by the Jesuitical Latin grammar schools - one of which Shakespeare attended - during the Elizabethan era. The prime catalyst in the blend of pragmatism and religiously proper conduct was an interdependency that deemed the advantages of others to be congruent with one’s own: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Language grounded in altruism is more elevated than that of routine secular dialogue or economic expediency, and the faithful in local UK parishes were largely ignorant of the hypocrisy and treachery from the top rungs of the church hierarchy.

It was the philosophical underpinnings of the Enlightenment that precipitated a golden age of the English language that would last two hundred years until imperialism brought it to a halt. Paradoxically, as the Romantic poets of the 19^th Century, enticed by a new reverence for subjective experience - exemplified in The Enlightenment’s bent for wider personal learning - wrote with grace and beauty of private spirituality, the general populace turned linguistically to the mundane concerns issuing from Britain’s fetish for acquisition. While Keats rhapsodized over the song of a nightingale, Wordsworth over the joys of returning to the River Wye, and Byron in thinly veiled autobiography of erotic conquest, England was preoccupied with stretching the tentacles of Empire and Englishmen with the wealth amassed by trade. Over time, demystification impaired the quality of spoken English.

Now, roughly two hundred years after the beginning of its decline, the English langusge is in a piteous condition. Hackneyed words and phrases are enjoying a heyday as never before. Millennials and Generation Z types use the word ‘like’ like it will soon be extinct. They say ‘like’ indiscriminately, because they lack the conviction and the tools of language to state what something is, only what it’s like. Recently I overheard a young woman in a coffee shop use the non-word ‘super-basic’, a neat little unintended oxymoron. Generation Z really ought to be called Generation zzzzzz. Anything that is not about intergalactic war resulting in the dissolution of entire planets or the story of an anthropomorphized toy tends to bore them. It is not their fault; they have seldom heard expressive English modeled. I fully expect bookstores to be obsolete before ten years have passed. Electronic devices can deliver instant gratification; books cannot. And while reading drops off like the petals of wildflowers in June, the onslaught of clichés continues.

Passed along from youth to elders is the term, ‘awesome.’ It is the single most abused word by American speakers of English. No one would bother pretending that what is ‘awesome’ inspires awe. It is simply an inter-generational synonym for ‘way cool.’ The one I personally find most unpleasant is ‘incredible.’ People use it to characterize events which have taken place and therefore can’t be considered outside the realm of belief. MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd recently referred to “the incredible reporting of Richard Engel.” Are we to believe that

Mr. Engel was not being truthful? It is equally troubling that to convey amazement, hordes are inordinately fond of the adverb ‘literally’. Eric Swalwell, a California congressman whom I admire, stated this morning with reference to testimony in the impeachment inquiry, “You could literally hear a pin drop.” I’m left to conclude that it’s a complex world which prompts people to use ‘literally’ when they mean ‘metaphorically’. Are we so befuddled by the world’s lavish uncertainties that we feel compelled to utter incontestable truth? I’m fascinated that such posterchildren for overuse as ‘awesome’, ‘incredible’ and ‘literally’ could all be synonyms meant to draw our attention to extremes, those conditions we fear the most but wish, however distantly, to own.

I’ve grown fascinated by the terminology used incessantly by political journalists. To be “thrown under the bus” is unenviable. To “get down in the weeds”, seemingly a duck hunting image, refers to penetrating to the core of a question.

“I don’t want to get over my skis” refers to the pitfall of voicing  assumptions without having all the facts (so perilous dialectically). We have a lot “to unpack” compares analysis to removing clothes from a suitcase, and to “drill down” is used when the weeds get too soggy. These maxims don’t justify their compulsive use. 

Our collective verbal paralysis is not only the detritus of popular culture and technology but points to the massive failure of public education. In thirty-one years as a high school teacher, I recall not a single faculty meeting that dealt with curriculum. I hope The Odyssey, The Canterbury Tales, and Macbeth will survive the cataclysm, but I’m not taking any bets. The low esteem in which American education is held is reflected in the dearth of state and federal funding and in initiatives to allot money preparing students exclusively for tech careers. And, but for the Harrows and the Etons, British schools aren’t thriving either.

Vitality in the use of language is not cyclical. It will decline uninterrupted like the force of gravity. As schools and colleges continue to adapt their curricula to subjects their clients find most useful for vocational training, classical literature and ultimately history itself will be jettisoned. Courses in the ancient languages are already vanishing. As the century wears on words will become more impoverished and much verbal exchange will sadly resemble teen-speak.

Dr. Johnson is flipping in his casket.        

Samuel Johnson by W. Jackson Bate is the best biography ever.

Change my mind.