We could talk about the Big Storm down in Florida. Or maybe who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines up in the Baltic. Instead, we have often become a little hysterical over the arbitrary changes to our language. External Imposition! It is irritating since it comes and goes based on political need. You may have heard the commotion this morning about the partisan issue regarding changing the Spanish language. That matter has been an issue for quite a while. Some vanguard advocates have argued that the \u201cvowel ending\u201d on many words en Espanol conveys a \u201cgender\u201d associated with the word.<\/p>\n
\u201cLatino\u201d or \u201cLatina\u201d are examples of that grammatical convention which is sort of efficient by conveying twice as much information in a single noise.<\/p>\n
To make things better and more inclusive, some have advocated changing the \u201co\u2019s\u201d and \u201ca\u2019s\u201d to \u201cx\u2019s.\u201d There is a problem, though. Like uncertainty about how that would be pronounced. Some non-Spanish speakers call it \u201cLatin-Ex.\u201d Others are more subtle, blending the hard consonant into something softer that conveys the rounder shape of Spanish words without sounding like a digestive supplement.<\/p>\n
Reaction? Apparently those who speak Spanish think their language is fine as it is, and they don\u2019t need help from non-speakers of their mother tongue, or \u201clengua materna,\u201d in proper pronunciation. Of course, the more assertive partisans would hold that the progressive version would be \u201clengua Maternx.\u201d With the soft \u201ca\u201d in language being just a soft vowel with the \u201cx\u201d in Mother not having a dash in front of it. It is awkward just to type the last letter, and we apologize.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want to get into the dispute on a language that is not ours. Apparently, Hispanic people (O\u2019s, A\u2019s and X\u2019s) don\u2019t like it either. The progressive answer is to convert Spanish to French, and use the less declarative closing phrase \u201cles,\u201d which avoids use of two thirds of the controversial vowel. We have a feeling that if Spanish speakers wanted to be French, they could have done it already. But we will leave that up to those who are passionate about their \u201cvowels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over here in the English-speaking world, we don\u2019t have quite the same number of gender-associated word endings. Our faults tend to be associated with titles- which is to say \u201cman\u201d and \u201cwoman,\u201d as the suffix to other descriptive words like \u201cChairman.\u201d A number of replacements have been proposed, some of which are sort of awkward. \u201cBirthing people\u201d has been floated as a replacement for \u201cmother.\u201d You get the idea that they are even more annoying than the changes to the Spanish language, particularly ones dealing with recurring features of biologic function. We don\u2019t require scientific help on that, and ignore those substitutions since they are ridiculous.<\/p>\n
There is another set of concurrent casualties in the language, though, and we just wanted to pay tribute to one of the words that has been done in and cast aside. It was not one of the ones with a partisan pallor, but something a little less obvious.<\/p>\n
Here it is, controversial or not. The word: \u201cTwice.\u201d You may have heard it before, which in older times referred to an action performed \u201ctwo times.\u201d It was sort of a useful word. Short. Pithy: \u201cWe did something two-times,\u201d or, \u201cDid it twice.\u201d You can see that is shorter and more useful.<\/p>\n
Maybe the word police were called in, due to the distinct rhyming issue. \u201cTwice\u201d has clear issues there, including confusion with anything frozen (ice), or particularly pleasing (\u201cnice.\u201d) Now, all the commercials not featuring people of different hues or genders dating one another would be doing something \u201ctwo times,\u201d rather than just \u201ctwice.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, one problem solved and another created. The former term seems a little juvenile in diction, like the speaker had not yet learned the more adult version of the shorter and more succinct term \u201ctwice.\u201d We could put an \u201cx\u201d in it, but you can see that issue immediately and it doesn\u2019t just mean looking around for the italicskey. Plus, we already have words with that combination of letters in them, but they mean something else. Like \u201cTwixt,\u201d which is a strange enough construction to seem modern, even if it is just a shortened version of \u201cbetwixt,\u201d meaning \u201cin between,\u201d which wasn\u2019t what we were trying to say at all.<\/p>\n
Which actually is part of the larger effort, like replacing \u201cequality\u201d with \u201cequity,\u201d which sort of sounds the same but means something completely different. We understand that is the point, but are not prepared to recraft our entire syntax before lunch, you know? Who could tell if it was male or whatever that other thing was? We are still wondering how the politics wound up in the prose, but if we are not supposed to add an \u201cx\u201d to demonstrate our virtue, we are curious about what to use instead.<\/p>\n
We would re-phrase that emotion to say it more than once over again, but that leads us to saying things like \u201ctwo times,\u201d instead of just doing it again. You know. Like \u201ctwice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
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