When
the Pilgrim Fathers popped off on their little adventure they took
with them a number of words in common usage at the time. When a
language changes location the process of evolution begins upon it.
Some words they took with them died out but continued here in the UK;
others died out in the UK but survived in the Americas. Fall
for autumn
would be a good example - we used to use it here all the time. It is
wrong to call it an Americanism.
And
look at the history of our English language in England. Our words
come from all over the world.
Trying
to stop the evolution of language is a bit Canutey. And by the way I
think his name was C'nut or K'nut. It evolved. In particular at the
teenage level words are reclaimed and relocated all the time. Is that
a good thing? No, it's wicked. It's mint. It's top drawer pants.
So
a petition dropped in to my in-box this week asking me to support the
Coalition
for Marriage
petition.
This
petition asks the government to fix the legal definition of marriage
as:
...the
voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of
all others.
Trouble
is that the law defines current behaviour almost as often as it
restricts it. Lots of same-sex partners, now civil-partnered
officially, refer to their other-half as their wife or husband and
their status as married. We can't stop them doing it, despite
whatever the law says.
Furthermore
the definition means we need to find some new word for the status of
those who have married for a second or third time after a failed 'to
the exclusion of all others' relationship.
There
are things to get excited about in this life. Maybe us heterosexuals
should get more concerned about setting a better example of how to
sustain a wonderful, long-term, to-the-exclusion-of-all-others
relationship. Then we would define marriage rather than asking the
courts to. I'm not signing.
2 comments:
Doesn't Cnut get a bad press? As I understand it he never thought he could turn back the tide. It was his followers who over-rated his powers. The whole tide thing was a demonstration to them that there were some things even the king couldn't do.
Still, I guess following the logic (which I don't dispute, btw) of your post, then the fact that that's what happened then shouldn't hinder us in using his name to mean the opposite now.
Very confusing. But, as you say, there are things to get more excited about.
Agre with you Alex. That was exactly C'nut's point.
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