WAR OF THE WORDS

How do words become acceptable in standard writing? Prescriptivists (people who argue that language should be dictated to the masses) try to present the standard as rigid, infallible, and very historic. They resist change, referring to it as a perversion. They give the impression that the standard (language acceptable in newspapers or college essays) is somehow above the rest of society, an elite entity that is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. These prescriptivists would say that language change is better left to descriptionists (people who argue that no one language is better than another). The vernacular, they would say, is the appropriate place for new words or ways of saying things. Regardless of what the prescriptivists might say, however, the standard is very dynamic and attuned to the will of the general public. Like all other media, dictionaries and style guides are a part of the circuit of culture; they embody many of the steps along the ongoing cycle of representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation.

How does a word come into being? A word or grammatical structure can find its genesis in a variety of ways. Some words are the products of acronyms such as “laser” which stands for light amplified by stimulated emission of radiation. Some words are coined such as “zipper” or “aspirin” which were originally brand names. Still other words are blended such as “smog” as a combination of smoke and fog. Interestingly, these words began as representations of a concept for which there was no other word, and like all linguistic developments, they were not instantly accepted into the standard. Contemporary parallel words that are widely used and understood, but are not actually part of the standard include “badunkadunk”, “kleenex”, and “crunk”. These words were innovated as a means of expression, a way of representing something in a new manner. And, of course, it is possible that they will one day work their way into the standard, just like their forefathers—“popularity”, “busy”, and “heinous.”

Just like every other aspect of culture, words proceed from the representation stage to the identity stage. Certain words begin to become markers of identity for certain groups of people. For example, the word “gnarly” has basically been relocated to the world of surfers. It may never find its way into the standard because the people who identify with that word are not the type of people (affluent, elitist newspaper people) who ultimately set the standard. Some other words, however, are likely to become part of the standard because of the fact that they find a place in the lexicon of those very people. For example, “bioweapon”, although it was only added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary a couple of years ago, seems to already be making great strides towards legitimacy in the eyes of the standard because it is frequently used in professional newspapers and television programs. Thus, a symbiotic relationship is created between words and their speakers: speakers find identity in their words and words find identity in their speakers.

Of course, after words find a viable identity within a community, they are produced in the media. Marketing experts tap into these words and find ways to use them to reach out to a particular demographic. For example, after the word “badonkadonk” was used in popular songs, it soon became marketed back to the populace via clothing and other items. Retail is not the only medium for production, however. More high-culture words may simply be produced in dictionaries. Indeed, words find their way into dictionaries because dictionary makers monitor a word’s use in the popular media. The word “blog” made its dictionary production debut as recently as 2004. Obviously, production occurs when companies (whether dictionary or otherwise) see a viable identity and capitalize upon it.

When identities are marketed to the general populace, they are usually consumed, thereby spreading the identity like wildfire. Thus, though a word might start out with a very small identity, that identity could grow and grow if it is produced and consumed effectively. So, because “blog” is added to the dictionary, and because there is no standard alternative for “blog”, the public buys into it. “Blog” (and its other forms such as “blogger” and “blogosphere”) are now commonplace words used by the everyday people as well as people who seemingly speak the standard like Dan Rather. With every individual consumption of a word, that word becomes more and more cemented as a symbol of a particular identity, and it is both the producers and the consumers who play a role in what that identity might be.

The most ambiguous part of a word’s circle of culture is its regulation. How exactly does a word become part of a standard? Evidently, simply gaining a line in an accepted dictionary is not enough to appease prescriptivists because “bling bling” is a part of the Oxford English Dictionary, yet it is not appropriate for use in professional or scholarly pieces. Indeed, there is no exact litmus test for standard English writing. However, standard English is regulated via style guides and their very vocal enforcers, English teachers and newspaper editors. Words become a part of the standard when they have found a successful representation, identity, production, and consumption among the appropriate audience—the elite prescriptivists.

Interestingly enough, once words have become part of the standard, they begin the cycle all over again, gaining new privileges among new speakers. The words find new identities among different communities who either reject or embrace the word based on its newly regulated status. In this manner, words (even words in the rigid standard) are constantly in flux, being invented and re-invented. Even the standard that is supposed to be so resistant to outside influences is susceptible to the circuit of culture. Standard English is just as alive and dynamic as the people who speak it.