Language is a living thing, and as such, it constantly mutates. What do I love and hate about that fact? That language is a constantly changing thing,.
Okay, one of y favorite examples is from the show The Simpsons. Now, with the exception of the annual TREEHOUSE OF HORROR. I couldn't much care about the Simpsons. I watched the show when it started and I watched the way the art changed and okay, that's fine.
But, I was amused to the point of a grin on my face when the Oxford Dictionary decided to add the word "D'oh" as modern slang. How delightful! A goofy little comment from Homer Simpson became an actual word in the English language because so many people were using it. I bet if I looked into it I could find a few words from Buffy The Vampire Slayer added as well.
I love the fact that the English language adapts and changes to suit its own needs. Sometimes it steals from other languages (Okay, often), sometimes a new word is made up on the fly In any event the language becomes something new. How cool is that? It's like watching a chameleon change colors.
I all as is almost always the case, working on multiple projects at once. Short stories, novels, collaborations, a novella. all of these are directly affected by the change in language. My novels is a first-person spin-off of a Novelette I wrote ten years ago, which is, in turn, a spin-off from a novel. The language is a complete bastardization of the English I speak and usually use because it's told by a hitman with a very different grasp of the English language. He doesn't speak like me. He isn't me. I'm just telling his story. I've caught myself a few times wanting to increase his vocabulary, but I won't let that happen. He has his ways, I have mine.
It all varies. One o0f my teachers, when I was a kid, thought the word "garbage" was the most beautiful sounding word in the English language She told that to a herd of fifth graders and was shocked at the laughter. I knew another teacher who though "Onomonapeia" was the bee's knees. Words are wonderfully quirky in this language. We turn a phrase with the best of them and usually get it exactly wrong enough to annoy at least one reader a book at a guess. But we use those words just the same, and we invent new ones if we have to.
If I can be said to have anything that I don't like about the way the language keeps changing, I guess I'd have to say I'm not fond of the shortcuts. Where R U should never replace Where are you? in my book. It made sense when you had to pay for each character n a text, but those days are mostly gone.
