Telegraph Interview With John Humphrys
Language is more than a tool for expressing ourselves. It acts as a mirror to our world, reflecting back to us the way we live. It reflects our attitudes about the way we see things and how we are seen by others: in public life; in politics and commerce; in advertising and marketing; in broadcasting and journalism. Yet the prevailing wisdom about language seems to be that "anything goes".
Word by word, we are at risk of dragging our language down to the lowest common denominator and we do so at the cost of its most precious qualities: subtlety and precision. If we're happy to let our common public language be used in this way, communication will be reduced to a narrow range of basic meanings.
Rutler: Words and Reality (First Things)
Lewis Carroll anticipated the word games that demagogues play when he had Humpty Dumpty say, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” There are a lot of Humpty Dumptys around in our time, turning words inside out to turn the moral order upside down. They call vice “liberation” and infanticide “health care.” A few years ago, a major chain of bookshops listed a book on how to commit suicide under the category “Self-Improvement.”
George Orwell updated Lewis Carroll in his brooding book 1984. By now “Orwellian” has become a neologism for Humpty Dumpty talk. In a famous essay called “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell wrote: “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
Foolish thoughts can also be criminal and destructive. Recently the press reported the death of a retired Massachusetts congressman who, despite having been censured for perverse and predatory sexual offences with a youth, was re-elected to office and given major leadership offices. One senator called him “a role model.” The New York Times and the Boston Globe obituaries said that he was survived by his husband. His husband. The syntax reminded us that we are a couple of decades past 1984 and language rot is now a received style. It is not just Humpty Dumpty silliness: It is a deliberate attempt to alter reality by altering the language which describes reality.
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Great post. I really do identify with the deterioration of our thought process due in large part to our limited vernacular. We often forget that we are communicating creatures that were built to speak not nly to God and others, but also to ourselves in ways that are most effective and accurate. Without the ability to speak to ourselves, we are left with nothing more than an impulse driven, barbaric reaction to things which happen upon us. The gospel is to be proclaimed (hence the term “good news”), and that to ourselves. It is what frees us and humanity and it is what glorifies our Father. If our speaking is muddled regarding Christ, I do believe there is a denigration of His value and merit on our behalf.
There is a phenomenal work called “The Vanishing Word” by Arthur Hunt. He recognizes the trend of image over word and the effects our language has upon our culture. He would argue that in our thirst for imagery we risk becoming mindless pagans whose minds are so dulled that we lack the biblical and mental defenses we need to resist contrary gospels.
He’s not anti-image, but sees that the word must always trump image. He has a great analysis of image driven cultures starting back with they Egyptians and the kind of logic and thought forms which resulted. I’m not big on subscribing to modernity for the sake of a purely rationalistic view of language, nor am I a fan of Derridian deconstructionism which sees language as suspect at best. One rests on language and logic as savior, the other sees impulse and emotion as the messiah. Christ was the the very “image” of God, yet this image is described best as the “Word” of God. He is able to give meaning to both for His glory and our joy.
Great stuff brother, thanks for getting me thinking this morning!
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Strangely enough, we would not know this were it not for God's word which teaches us this truth.
Posted by: david fairchild | November 02, 2006 at 02:26 PM