RE: the old insure ensure assure

["Boudreaux, Madelyn (GE Healthcare, consultant)" <MadelynBoudreaux -at- ge -dot- com>]

On Behalf Of Downing, David

>But where do you draw the line between evolution and degradation? I'm 
>inclined to see it as degradation when there were formerly two words 
>that each had a distinct meaning and one of those words starts to get 
>misused for the other and eventually the misuse becomes accepted. 
>For example, it's always bugged me that "lay" is now acceptable to be 
>used in cases where "lie" was formerly the correct word.

But can't it also indicate poor "design" when something is regularly
misused until it becomes the de facto usage? 

I was told, as a kid, that the sidewalks at LSU in Baton Rouge were
strange because if the students cut across the lawn and made a track,
the university would turn that track into a sidewalk. This may be
apocryphal, but it's always served me well as an understanding of design
vs. usage. I think we have to strike a balance -- neither "Keep off the
grass" signs nor a completely paved campus. 

I get mad at my partner because he's taught our dogs to "lay down," even
though I've told him time and again that they are dogs, not chickens.
But you know, there's no difference to them -- they respond the same to
"lie down" as they do to "lay down." (Actually, they bounce off the
walls no matter which we use, but that's another story.) That's dog
wisdom for you; take it with a grain of salt, because dogs do a lot
things we shouldn't emulate. 

If languages had a single point or origin (in some Tolkien-esque
notebook somewhere), we could argue that things had been designed to be
a certain way, and there's no changing them. But languages develop over
time in such a way that the "old way" may become useless, just as the
"new way" may have other problems. I'm reminded of the quotation about
English being a cribhouse whore: "The problem with defending the purity
of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse
whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued
other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their
pockets for new vocabulary." It's not just other languages we steal
from, though. 

I'm not arguing either for or against usage dictating meaning. Again, it
should be about balance. I want to bang my head against a wall every
time I hear disconnect used as a noun, or when someone "begs the
question" incorrectly. But recently, I decided that in 20 years, the
terms will mean what people want it to mean, and there's no stopping it.
I suppose I'll stop cringing on the day when I use them that way (never,
I hope!), but at best, I can only envy those who never make such
mistakes, because I certainly use many words in non-traditional fashion.


- Madelyn
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