Chapter Last Words of Guide to Language Change - Study Guide by Linguistics

Last Words

What is quite certain is that however intriguing the attempts to perfect the English language have been, they have amounted to little in the way of universal laws and achieved almost nothing in restraining the language. "Custome" hurries on unabated and with no precise definition available for those wishing to consign its dialects into pigeonholes of vulgarity or purity. It is and shows no suggestion of failing to be tantalisingly out of reach of every generation. The "Queen's English Society" and other such amateur bastions of language-fanatics may object to the change which seems to be inevitable in the English language as any other. However, the adapting of language is certain since it is in its living form a medium for communication and thought and not a vehicle for (typically divisive) speculation about where words and grammatical constructions come from. In the light of almost half a millennium's fatalistic and unnecessary concern for the moribund state of English, the continued attempts by some to tailor the language to their own ends seem to be themselves doomed to failure in the long term.