Language Responsibility Project?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace

Kinda, its a Heraldic cross variation/sun variation from the Middle Ages. It also appears in lots of archeological digs, including Troy and a number of spots in India, placing it pre-CE.

It's been called a Cross Cramponee and is described in heraldry as "a Cross potent rebated". So to describe the Nazi flag, it would be "Sable, a Cross potent rebated, on a Plate, a field gules." ie a black bent cross on a silver circle, on a red background


Basically, most simple patterns appear at various times throughout history. 

[Manta Obscura]

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace

Kinda, its a Heraldic cross variation/sun variation from the Middle Ages. It also appears in lots of archeological digs, including Troy and a number of spots in India, placing it pre-CE.

It's been called a Cross Cramponee and is described in heraldry as "a Cross potent rebated". So to describe the Nazi flag, it would be "Sable, a Cross potent rebated, on a Plate, a field gules." ie a black bent cross on a silver circle, on a red background


Basically, most simple patterns appear at various times throughout history. 

Ah, thanks Rat. Do you do a lot of heraldry research? If so, I'd appreciate if you could post a link to information about it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace

Kinda, its a Heraldic cross variation/sun variation from the Middle Ages. It also appears in lots of archeological digs, including Troy and a number of spots in India, placing it pre-CE.

It's been called a Cross Cramponee and is described in heraldry as "a Cross potent rebated". So to describe the Nazi flag, it would be "Sable, a Cross potent rebated, on a Plate, a field gules." ie a black bent cross on a silver circle, on a red background


Basically, most simple patterns appear at various times throughout history. 

Ah, thanks Rat. Do you do a lot of heraldry research? If so, I'd appreciate if you could post a link to information about it.

I was the local herald for our shire (SCA). There are a lot of great websites that provide details, also I have some awesome books... including one that has the heraldry of the "Ó Cinnéide" family, Cinnéide was a relative of Brian Boru, and his family heraldry has remained throughout... in fact, a great-great-great * grandchilds heraldry is also in the book... John Fitzgerald Ó Cinnéide (aka JFK).

The SCA main page for heraldry is at http://heraldry.sca.org/ the links section have lots of useful information. Particularly http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/heraldry/
http://www2.kumc.edu/itc/staff/rknight/heraldry.htm

I love heraldry

[Golden Applesauce]

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace

Kinda, its a Heraldic cross variation/sun variation from the Middle Ages. It also appears in lots of archeological digs, including Troy and a number of spots in India, placing it pre-CE.

It's been called a Cross Cramponee and is described in heraldry as "a Cross potent rebated". So to describe the Nazi flag, it would be "Sable, a Cross potent rebated, on a Plate, a field gules." ie a black bent cross on a silver circle, on a red background


Basically, most simple patterns appear at various times throughout history. 

It's also used a lot of Eastern contexts, although usually not tilted at the 45 degree angle.  Hinduism and Buddhism in particular use it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Hinduism

[Reginald Ret]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

What do you mean by preservation of language?

I wrote "perversion of language", not "preservation". 
---referring to semantic repurposing meant to obfuscate the original meaning

The first gothic-style cathedral was described as "awful, artificial and amusing." All three adjectives were complimentary.

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace.

The perversion of language and symbols occurs all the time in linguistics, literature and various forms of mediation, and often accounts for the transition from one linguistic system to another. For instance, the Great Vowel Shift (or, as I prefer to call it, the Great Vowel Movement) of the early Middle Ages irrevocably shifted the pronunciation of almost all the words in Middle English. The interplay of Greek, Carribbean pidgen and other linguistic systems added thousands of new words to English throughout its evolution.

My point is, dozens of new changes are introduced to a linguistic system every day. Like our limited perception of everything else, we only perceive or encounter a small, minute fraction of all the changes that happen but, like it or not, things are changing. Some of the changes occur due to random memes being introduced and some are forcibly introduced as new terms, like the Dept. of HLS, as you said. Similar things have happened (assigning positive or negative spin to formerly neutral or ambivalent words) with words throughout history in ALL languages. Shakespeare was a major player in this. Popes did this during the Crusades. Protestants and Catholics alike did it during the early Schism days and the discussion of transubstantiation.

In a few hundred years (nuclear holocausts and other doomsday scenarios notwithstanding), our language is going to be radically different from what it is now. Maybe sooner, given the speed of communications nowadays. There is no way to permanently preserve language, or prevent its perversion; culture jamming will prevent the change/perversion of the linguistic system about as efficiently as advocating anal sex will prevent the production of offspring, culture-wide. It might feel good for awhile, but after awhile people will roll over and start doing what gets the job done.

Short story long: it's frustrating as hell to see language misused/abused nowadays, and we can, in the short run, culture jam to alleviate some of the frustrations. But in 100 years, or 500, or 1000 (who knows, really?), we might not even have the word "terror" anymore outside of history books. The word "foozleflop"* might be the new indicator for "terror." Just like the Victorians and other traditionalists were worried about the "dissolution of forms" with the Imagists and Post-modernists, we're worried about the dissolution of ascribed meaning with the advent of new media social structures. The old forms survived, and the power of language will, too.

lets call this change and this perversion.

[Manta Obscura]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

What do you mean by preservation of language?

I wrote "perversion of language", not "preservation". 
---referring to semantic repurposing meant to obfuscate the original meaning

The first gothic-style cathedral was described as "awful, artificial and amusing." All three adjectives were complimentary.

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace.

The perversion of language and symbols occurs all the time in linguistics, literature and various forms of mediation, and often accounts for the transition from one linguistic system to another. For instance, the Great Vowel Shift (or, as I prefer to call it, the Great Vowel Movement) of the early Middle Ages irrevocably shifted the pronunciation of almost all the words in Middle English. The interplay of Greek, Carribbean pidgen and other linguistic systems added thousands of new words to English throughout its evolution.

My point is, dozens of new changes are introduced to a linguistic system every day. Like our limited perception of everything else, we only perceive or encounter a small, minute fraction of all the changes that happen but, like it or not, things are changing. Some of the changes occur due to random memes being introduced and some are forcibly introduced as new terms, like the Dept. of HLS, as you said. Similar things have happened (assigning positive or negative spin to formerly neutral or ambivalent words) with words throughout history in ALL languages. Shakespeare was a major player in this. Popes did this during the Crusades. Protestants and Catholics alike did it during the early Schism days and the discussion of transubstantiation.

In a few hundred years (nuclear holocausts and other doomsday scenarios notwithstanding), our language is going to be radically different from what it is now. Maybe sooner, given the speed of communications nowadays. There is no way to permanently preserve language, or prevent its perversion; culture jamming will prevent the change/perversion of the linguistic system about as efficiently as advocating anal sex will prevent the production of offspring, culture-wide. It might feel good for awhile, but after awhile people will roll over and start doing what gets the job done.

Short story long: it's frustrating as hell to see language misused/abused nowadays, and we can, in the short run, culture jam to alleviate some of the frustrations. But in 100 years, or 500, or 1000 (who knows, really?), we might not even have the word "terror" anymore outside of history books. The word "foozleflop"* might be the new indicator for "terror." Just like the Victorians and other traditionalists were worried about the "dissolution of forms" with the Imagists and Post-modernists, we're worried about the dissolution of ascribed meaning with the advent of new media social structures. The old forms survived, and the power of language will, too.

lets call this change and this perversion.

I don't see the distinction between the two, Regret.

When I say "forcibly" introduced, I don't mean it in a literal way, as if an organization or group is actively and forcibly thrusting the changes onto others. Cases like that rarely work. Example: "freedom fries." That fad, where folks were advocating boycotting the French (which is idiotic; in the context of french fries, "french" is a word for how they are prepared, not their country of origin), was more actively coercive than any of the changes "forcibly" introduced in words like "terror" or "homeland security." Forcing language never works beyond the fad level.

People "force" the changes in language themselves by participating in the use of certain phrases to mean a certain thing in a certain context. So in reality, the difference between the change and the perversion which I referenced earlier is negligible. Like it or not, something happened to our country on 9/11, and like it or not, people were going to call the motivating philosophy behind it something. They could have just as easily used the term "horrorism," or "fear-farming," or any other combination of terms to mean the same thing as "terrorism" and "Terror."

Words, even those which are "forcibly" introduced to describe a certain social development, are chosen arbitrarily, and function sort of how the "survival of the fittest" does in biology, except with words it's "survival of the good enough." The words "heretic," and "inquisition" had set meanings before the Spanish Inquisition, but were changed during and afterward (for a time) due to the arbitrary choice of the populus to use those words. They could have just as easily chosen the words "infidel" and "interrogation," but they didn't, and for awhile after that the words they did choose had a horrific resonance for those that had lived through the turmoil.

I'm not trying to say that people don't try to bend language to their whims. They do it all the time. What I am saying is that bending language to one's whims is how language has developed and changed since the beginning of language, or at least since the words we've made have been used to describe things that affect the social context. All people, everywhere, use and "misuse" their own language, mucking up accepted spellings, definitions and meanings, attributing different ideas to different words, altering the historical context of the words, etc. And that's okay, because it's everyone's language to use as they want. If someone uses a word incorrectly and the rest of the world doesn't like it, the world will just ignore them or call them a dumbass or something (or, if they're feeling kind, relegate their altered vocabulary to the realms of obscurity). But if someone or a group of someones uses language in a way that resonates with a large enough group of people, the change will stick around until people start ascribing different meaning to the words they use.

The only languages that are pure and "un-perverted" are those who have had their meanings set in stone, and the only languages that have done that are those that have died out with the death of their people (who, before dying out, also changed, misused and perverted their language). Living languages are filthy bastards and mutts, swimming in the filth of linguistic incest and inbreeding.

[rong]

broadly interpretable is broadly appealing

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Language mutates constantly. We can't stop it. It uses *us* to replicate. At the very least, we can try to make it mutate in good, nice, funny, aweful, artificial, amusing ways, instead of terrible, agonizing, facist, pink-commie-liberal-socialist-libertarian-cryptofacist-neocon-decepticon-lovehating-wingnutting-hateful ways.

That's just my pair o' pence.

[Reginald Ret]

I understand and agree manta.
Thanks for taking the time to make it clear to me

[Manta Obscura]

I understand and agree manta.
Thanks for taking the time to make it clear to me

No problem. It's best you hear it from me rather than out on the street.

Or, God help you, throughout four years of collegiate linguistics classes and case studies. . . *shudder*