My colleague Brian forwarded me Mike Elgan's article on Google Dictionary. He thought it depressing. I agreed.

English is suffering a progressive and inevitable dumbing down. The several trends conspiring in this are unlikely to be reversed. With the internationalisation of information, the role of English as the defacto world language constrains vocabulary and enforces simplified construction. Increasing reliance on verbal and "spelling optional" communication avoids the discipline of structured composition. Spelling and grammar checking software reduces colourful prose to a uniform grey.

Change in language is inevitable, necessary and desirable - I'm not doing a Canute on that. But for change to enrich anything it has to deliver diversity, even at the risk of fragmentation. The change we're seeing in twenty first century English is achieving the opposite. The rich palette of language is shrinking, flexibility of expression is slowly calcifying.

My greatest concern doesn't come from the inner pedant who savours the language of Dickens, Trollope and Austin. It comes from the thinker who worries that losing the ability to succintly and aptly articulate our thoughts may mean the loss of the thoughts themselves. Thinking and language are tightly coupled: without the language of algebra, would e = mc²?

There is no easy way to reverse the decline in written English. Many of the trends are true in most contemporary languages, as L'Académie Française will attest. Perhaps a watching brief is our only option ... at least until someone comes up with a strategy.

And who knows? Perhaps that someone will be Google.

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