That’s just like the language we choose to use (p. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wearing sweatpants to a party but you’re signaling something in society. But if it interests you, you really should buy it, because there’s so much more. I finally wanted to share my notes from reading this. I first read this book earlier this summer, part of a binge on McWhorter’s books and linguistics generally. This concept is the big idea from linguistics that John McWhorter most gets at in his sublimely readable and thoughtful Words on the Move book from 2016.
That is a pretty good approximation of language. It’s just not what most of us would consider common today. We also might think they could return someday in some form if fashion and culture moves in the right way. We don’t quite say someone is wrong for wearing bell-bottom jeans today. This changes how we treat language and its uses. We get it wrong: language is always in motion, more like fashion, than science or math.
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