Member-only story
Those To Over They’re R Not My Friend’s
How the mutability of language and orthography creates a perpetual tension between ease of expression and subsequent comprehension
Despite the best efforts of certain individuals to legislate on what is, and is not, acceptable in terms of common usage, language always mutates and orthography mutates along with it, though rarely in parallel. Each new generation creates its own argot, and a few words or phrases here and there will survive as that generation ages and the next new generation makes its linguistic mark in turn. For example, we no longer say far out and groovy (unless we’re being sarcastic or ironic) but many people still say that’s so cool! Few of us (perhaps, in fact, only myself) will say gadzooks! when surprised, but nearly everyone nowadays says hello even though this is a comparatively recent introduction arising from the introduction of the telephone (the alternative suggested way to answer the phone was ahoy-hoy so we can be grateful that we got off lightly).
Likewise spelling changes over time as old ways fade and new ways emerge. When print was first spreading across Europe, the art of leading and kerning was still in its infancy and so compositors would add letters to words in order to achieve right-hand justification. Conversely the art of…
