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English is a fun messed up language
Oh to be a non-first language English learner trying to grasp the nuances of English English. Its almost as if the gods invented an eighth circle of hell just for those who want to converse in this glorious maladapted tongue of ours. French meet Germany, Latin here’s Dutch, now let’s have a polycule with every other language and voile, here’s the red headed stepchild of global languages. Yes, English is the language that co-opted schadenfreude because why use a whole sentence when German has a single word. The language of Shakespeare is also the language of 140 characters, l33t speech, and Indian call centres. In the meaningful is an actual phrase, not just pat script. So why are we so insistent in trying to turn this mucky oik of a language into my fair lady?
Folk in general clamour for consistent meaning of terms, especially if you need ordinary meaning for laws and empirical science. Yet, any browsing of TikTok will show you that English is gloriously rumbunctious, always finding new ways to slip through the cracks in the prison we try to set over it. Our mucky oik is such because English is the wild meadow of languages, allowed to run rampant with seeds of possibility. Some will find deep roots and sprout many branches of meanings, others will bloom briefly then wither into seeds waiting to be watered.
