when first I checked it, was "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

Odd, no?

cordially,

So where does L'acadamie Francaise fall on your continuum? --on the side of reaction, clearly, and as I indicated, I haven't a problem with that. Of course, the French have their own cultural issues, and a different attitude toward linguistic "purity." English, after all, has been a cheerful mongrel of a language ever since it re-emerged from several generations spent below the salt, grammatically slimmed down and itself substantially gallicized, during the Hundred Years' War. Indeed, now I think on it, it's odd to consider how the French are considered such libertines, in the popular imagination, in matters of the flesh, contrasted to our own Puritan tradition, whereas when it comes to the company they keep it is the French language that's historically strait-laced, whereas English, really, is a bit of a slut...

cordially,

[edit: duplicate English word]

Indeed, the only effectively frozen language I can think of offhand is Latin (we used to call it a "dead" language, which puzzled me when I was growing up), although there are probably analogues in other cultures. In the "natural" state of humanity--before, that is, mechanized travel and mass media, particularly radio onward--languages tended to differentiate and finally speciate according to geography, and those centrifugal forces still exist, as I was reminded while attempting to chat up an Australian in Amsterdam a few years back. Particularly with television and films we see an opposite, homogenizing tendency with respect to the differentiation of language over distance, although these technologies may also serve to accelerate the development (or devolution, if you're feeling jaundiced) of language over time. The brief, explosive vogue a couple of decades back of the "Valley Girl" argot could be considered to demonstrate both those premises.

The goal of freezing language is perhaps foolish; certainly unattainable. The attempt, however, might be worth while--serving, as I said, to retard its headlong rush into incomprehensibility for anyone not in the first blush of youth.

I don't really get upset when further and farther are commingled in popular use (I suspect that "farther" will be pushed out over time), but I bristle at the (exclusively written) confusion over its and it's, and as for "lie" and "lay" (as in "I think I'll go lay down")...well, if necessary I'll form bands of partisans in the hills, all of us in civilian clothing and with plenty of grenade launchers to go around, before I yield on that one.

militantly,