>>64448
>However, equating precision with rigidity misses how language actually functions. Language evolves naturally through usage, and this evolution doesn’t invalidate past definitions—it simply expands them.
No, you're just looking for excuses to be lazy and using words that are not meant to be used the way they are. A rather infamous example of this is retards missusing the word "jealous". Traditionally, it was just another spelling of the world "zealous", but people have been lazy and missused the word to such an extent that now it's more synonymous with "envy", and it's only now that people are addressing it that works that have intentionall been misconstrued to have certain meaning (*Such as "
God is a jealous god"**) are now returning to their original context. Then there's other times that people are
intentionally given the incorrect or extremely streamlined defintion of a word because the word exists as coded language.
>For example, “literally” now carries an informal meaning of “figuratively” because of widespread use.
Only with idiots, no one else.
>Interestingly, if misusing language makes someone incapable of conversation, wouldn’t that apply to those who insist on a single rigid meaning, even when the majority use it differently?
No, it doesn't. Unless the person flips out because "
You already know, you're just sealioning", the person can explain what they actually mean by their usage of a word. In fact, legal and scientific documents do this all the time. They explain exactly what they mean whenever a specific word is used so that the person reading the text knows to use that specific defintion whenever it is seen or used in the article.
>If language must strictly adhere to its oldest definition, then half of what we say today could be considered "incorrect." I’m not sure anyone, including you, would want to live by that standard.
I fail to see the issue. It's better to have a language with a wider variety of words than fewer because the centralization and utilization of a language in lesser and fewer words results in people being unable to express their ideas specificly and deal in abstract concepts like time and hyportheticals. This is exactly the problem people have whenever they work in an African nations, who's
entire' language is the length of a small novel compared to your average "small" English pocket dictionary
starting at 400 pages.
>Even Shakespeare’s works—widely studied and revered—contain numerous words whose meanings have faded or transformed.
Shakespeare was the "Brainrot" of his day. He wasn't some high-aspiring writer, his plays were just mass-media trash and low effort smut, only remembered because they were so "popular". It would be like society 200 years from now treating the Michael Bay's Transformers series or Adam Sandler's entire career as "high art" because "
Look at how much money they made". You've rather ironically proven my point. What about the works of other writers of the time like John Lyly and Philip Sidney? Hell, you're going to tell me that you cannot "understand" John Smith in his recount of his adventures in America? All you have to do is pick up a dictionary and use it when you encounter a word your don't understand, because that's what it's there for and it shows how little has changed. That's all I had to do when I decided to attempt reading Charles Rollin's "The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonian, and Grecians". Even the "Ye Olde" Kings James Bible isn't that difficult to read if you actually sit down
and just read the damn thing.
>If language were as rigid as you claim, how do you explain these changes that clearly occurred over time?
Because of people not knowing the language, missusing it, and then everyone else having to waste their time 'trad-wrangling all the jackasses that didn't want to work to understand the language or thought it would be funny to "Not know how to read good and do other stuff good". Kind of like what's going on right now, where it's more important to be a consultant than to actually be a specialist in a field and the result is an entire generation of knowledge being lost.
>Being able to generally understand old texts doesn’t mean the meanings haven’t evolved.
Again, it really hasn't.
>It’s true that languages like Japanese and French have stronger institutions enforcing linguistic rules, but even these languages evolve.
Again, they really haven't. I already bought up the example of Japan revising their language post WWII (
Which was already a highly contested issue since the statrt of Meiji Restoration), but even such compromises as the 当用漢字 were still fought against and detested by linguists and society because they were losing a huge portion of their entire history. Even the since revised and improved 常用漢字 (Which still leaves out other kanji still in common use) keeps having to add back in older kanji every few decades because of how important and "rigid" the language and terms are.
>Ironically, your example of Spanish speakers opposing "Latinx" demonstrates that language is contested, not static.
People wanting to maintain the purity of their language is people "contesting" their language?
>The very resistance highlights ongoing evolution.
Or it could be the sign of people attempt to force a change through that is not in any way natural. You know, for poltical and control purposes. Why do you think two different forms of the written Chinese language exist, one of the Communist country and the other for everywhere else?
>If languages were as rigid as you suggest, terms like "Latinx" wouldn’t even exist to provoke debate.
The only reason it "provokes debate" is because it's a forced attempt made by American intellectuals trying to conform the world to their religious beliefs, such as the idea that gender is a social construct.
>If deviation were truly unacceptable, we wouldn’t have this conversation right now—because the language allowing us to express these ideas wouldn’t exist
That's not how it works. The "deviation" is the expansion in vocabulary you use. Why you would use a world like "calculate" over "compute" and such. Using a word or language incorrectionly isn't a "deviation", it's a lack of education at best or a malicious act at worst.
>Facts remain objective—language, however, shapes how we discuss those facts.
So a language must remain objective in order to retain the ability to discuss those objective facts.
>The fact: Climate change exists.
That's not a fact, that's a framing device. What kind of "climate change" are you talking about? Global warming, global cooling, exclusively isolated and geographical changes? Who or what is causing the change in the climate: man, nature, the universe? Again, you're using terms you do not understand.
>Ironically, your insistence on one absolute definition for "woke" is, in itself, a kind of relativism—since it rejects the broader, widely-accepted usage by favoring your interpretation over others.
Being objective and stringent is now what it means to be "relative" in an argument? Did you even read the sentence you typed?
>I understand this comparison, but it assumes there is one “correct” usage of "woke"
Because there is.
>which isn’t how language typically works
Yes, it does.
>Words often carry multiple, valid meanings depending on context.
No, they don't. Please explain to me how the following statement can have "multiple" different interpretations and meanings:
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed
>"Gay" shifted from meaning “happy” to “homosexual.”
Except that's wrong. Gay was not ever synonymous with "happy". "Gay" was in reference to a fanciful, colorful, dream-like experience. It could be summarized as being "happy", but that's the wrong way to describe it as something being "gay" is not necessarily something being "happy". That's part of the why the term was "taken over" by homosexuals, because of them being flamboyant in how they acted.
>"Awful" once meant “awe-inspiring.”
That definition is still true.
>Would you say people who use “gay” in its modern sense are ignorant, like children misusing a swear word?
Yes, especially since the only people who still use "Gay" are children. Everyone else either calls them homosexuals or faggots.
>Are millions of people simply ignorant
Yes. A million people can be wrong or ignroant on a subject. Objective reality and truth does not care about relativism or consensus.