Very interesting, thanks. Are you familiar with the anarchist Gustav Landauer's short article urging people not to learn Esperanto?
"Only the most trivial, petty, and unimportant things can be expressed by an artificial product: only what is old and has been endlessly regurgitated – nothing new, fermenting, creative, ingenious. Language is alive. It has not only grown – it grows continuously. It contains a never-ending past, just as it contains a never-ending future.
"Artificial creations do not allow humans to think further and to craft new things. They can only translate what has already been said many times. They can never capture what is most important in a language: the fine shades, the nuances, the unspeakable. In the grown languages, a lot of what is said lives between the words as an unutterable element. In Esperanto we can only blabber".
I don't know too much about Esperanto other than it seems like a better bet for a second language than English for *SOME* speakers of Romance + Germanic languages... namely the ones who can't or won't attain a conversational level in English.
I can certainly see the advantages of some kind of lingua franca, having just attended a gathering in Italy where, at one point, a Spanish-speaker was being translated into Italian for the audience and then, privately, on into English for my benefit, although I was able to converse perfectly well with him in French! I think Landauer was right in that Esperanto could not, and should not, ever be treated as a real living language, but if it is regarded simply as a tool for communication, I don't see the problem. Like you, I don't like the use of English as the international language. Not only does it go hand in hand with Anglo-American imperialism, but it also serves to flatten the English language itself - turn it into a kind of lifeless Esperanto, in fact!
I couldn't agree more! When I read Orwell's classic essay "Politics and the English Language", I bemoan how far we've fallen since then. For instance, the near-total disappearance of "shall" from vernacular speech. This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder whether we're already a century deep on Newspeak.
Think about it. Here's a quote from "The Principles of Newspeak":
"The A vocabulary. The A vocabulary consisted of the words needed for the business of everyday life — for such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely of words that we already possess words like hit, run, dog, tree, sugar, house, field — but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary their number was extremely small, while their meanings were far more rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle was followed here: in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in other cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred meaning were not etymologically connected, one or other of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, no such word as cut, its meaning being sufficiently covered by the noun-verb knife. Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix -ful to the noun-verb, and adverbs by adding -wise. Thus for example, speedful meant ‘rapid’ and speedwise meant ‘quickly’. Certain of our present-day adjectives, such as good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained, but their total number was very small. There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be arrived at by adding -ful to a noun-verb. None of the now-existing adverbs was retained, except for a very few already ending in -wise: the -wise termination was invariable. The word well, for example, was replaced by goodwise.
In addition, any word — this again applied in principle to every word in the language — could be negatived by adding the affix un-, or could be strengthened by the affix plus-, or, for still greater emphasis, doubleplus-. Thus, for example, uncold meant ‘warm’, while pluscold and doublepluscold meant, respectively, ‘very cold’ and ‘superlatively cold’. It was also possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by prepositional affixes such as ante-, post-, up-, down-, etc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word good, there was no need for such a word as bad, since the required meaning was equally well — indeed, better — expressed by ungood. All that was necessary, in any case where two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of them to suppress. Dark, for example, could be replaced by unlight, or light by undark, according to preference.
The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below all inflexions followed the same rules. Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and ended in -ed. The preterite of steal was stealed, the preterite of think was thinked, and so on throughout the language, all such forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke, taken, etc., being abolished. All plurals were made by adding -s or -es as the case might be. The plurals of man, ox, life, were mans, oxes, lifes. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by adding -er, -est (good, gooder, goodest), irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed.
The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstrative adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed their ancient usage, except that whom had been scrapped as unnecessary, and the shall, should tenses had been dropped, all their uses being covered by will and would."
Fast forward 'til now and vocabularies are shrinking, shall is all but gone, most people can't use the word "whom" correctly, and beautiful English words like hither, thither, thenceforth, heretofore, henceforth, thence, whence, whither, etc are gone.
Sometimes I'll be reading something like "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay, which was published in 1841, and I'll realize how beautiful and amazing English can be. There's really no question in my mind that the decline of Western Civilization is occurring in our languages, which then affects our thoughts.
As Orwell so aptly put it:
"Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."
By the way, I'll probably write something posing the question "Is Modern English Newspeak?" If you have any thoughts on the subject, I'm all ears. I know you're a great appreciator of Orwell.
By the way, I don't know how familiar you are with Korzybski & General Semantics, but he believed that English was functionally defective in differentiating different kinds of meaning. Years into the virus debate, most people still can't wrap their minds around the idea that no one can prove the existence of viruses. They seem confused about what existence is. And we're talking about many very intelligent people. It appears to me that this is a failure of language. My theory is that English massive over-uses the indicative mood, conflating figures of speech with factual statements, idioms, etc.
Korzybski recommended using more embedded referents to better structure sentences, specifically proposing certain "extensional devices" to clarify meaning.
But as far as I can tell, this problem simply doesn't exist in Romance languages! There are endless embedded referents in verb conjugations which modify mood as well as person, gender, and tense.
Lastly I'll mention evidentials. Many languages have them, but English doesn't.
Here's an excerpt from something I've been working on:
"Different languages also have different verbs to refer to different kinds of knowing. In linguistics, there’s something called “evidentials” which refer to ways that different languages have of implicitly conveying epistemological data how the speaker knows something.
For example, some languages use different versions of “to be” to refer to first-hand knowledge as opposed to second-hand information, which is to say hearsay.
If you personally witnessed an action you were later telling someone about, you would use one word, but if you merely heard about the action from someone else, you would use another.
This seems like it could spare people a lot of problems. And there’s a pretty big difference between the sentences “she cheated on me” and “I heard that she cheated on him”, isn’t there?
Here, let me give you an example of how one language treats evidentials.
In Anishinaabe-mowin (Ojibwe language), evidentials play a significant role in conveying the source and certainty of information. Evidentials are grammatical markers that indicate the speaker's source of knowledge and the level of certainty about a statement. Here are some key points about evidentials in Anishinaabe-mowin:
Direct Evidence: This indicates that the speaker has personally witnessed or experienced the event. An example might include using specific verb forms or particles that imply the speaker saw or heard the event directly.
Indirect Evidence: This suggests that the speaker has inferred the information from indirect sources, such as hearsay or deduction. For instance, using certain particles or verb forms might indicate that the information was obtained from someone else or inferred from other evidence.
Reported Speech: This evidential type is used when the speaker is reporting what someone else has said. It often involves specific verbal constructions or particles that denote the information as second-hand.
Inferential Evidence: This type of evidentiality is used when the speaker infers information based on available evidence rather than direct observation.
These evidential markers are crucial for understanding the nuances of communication in Anishinaabe-mowin, as they help clarify the reliability and source of the information being conveyed. The use of evidentials in Anishinaabe-mowin underscores the importance of source and certainty in the transmission of knowledge within the culture.
So here we appear to have four different words that describe “is-ness”.
If you were talking about your own perception, you could say “Niwaabamaa nindinim”, which means “I see my daughter.”
If you were speaking about that you had not directly observed, you might say something like “Giinawind gii-pi-izhaad inini”, which means “We heard that the man came.” The form "gii-pi-izhaad" would indicate that you had not directly observed the action you are describing but only know about it from others' statements.
Similarly, you would say “Gii-ikidowag gaa-gii-ikidowa,” which means “They said what they said.” The verb form "Gaa-gii-ikidowag" is used to denote that the information comes from someone else's speech.
If one were referring to what one believes because of inference, one could say something like “Gii-bimaadizwan gaa-izhi-gii-bimaadizwan,” which means “He must have been alive, it seems.” The use of "gaa-izhi-gii-bimaadizwan" suggests inference based on evidence.
Now, I don’t speak Anishnaabe-mowin, so I don’t know how accurate it would be to say that there are four types of “is-ness” in that language. But I do know that languages treat “is-ness” differently. And why shouldn’t they?"
I wonder if so many people would still be convinced that invisible strands of RNA floating around in the air can kill human beings. Aren't we supposed to be apex predators? Aren't we the species who crossed the Pacific on fucking rafts? Didn't we cut our teeth hunting mammoths with fucking spears? It boggles my mind that people could be scared of something 50,000 times smaller than an ant. For fuck's sake, viruses don't even breathe!
No, viruses do not breathe. Breathing is a process associated with living organisms, involving the exchange of gases (such as oxygen and carbon dioxide) with the environment, typically for the purpose of cellular respiration to produce energy. Viruses, however, are not considered living organisms in the traditional sense because they lack the cellular machinery necessary for metabolism, including breathing.
Viruses are essentially composed of genetic material (DNA or RNA) encased in a protein coat and, in some cases, a lipid envelope. They do not possess cellular structures, such as mitochondria or ribosomes, which are required for metabolic processes, including respiration. Instead, viruses rely entirely on infecting host cells to replicate and produce energy. Once inside a host cell, they hijack the cell's machinery to replicate their genetic material and produce new virus particles.
Great essay! I’d like to see an alphabet in downtown nowhere Mexico trying to get the locals to change pronouns. They’d prob end up on a milk carton. And rightly so…trying to push the bullshit on everyone else to spare their own mental illness.
Now to go watch all the videos… this is interesting!
I'm glad somewhere appreciates this stuff! Like I said at the beginning of the essay, I kinda just fell down the YouTube linguistics rabbit hole. I gotta say, there are worse uses of time! But I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing my readers want me doing... Activists are notorious for endlessly talking about how we talk about things (cough, cough, Earth First!, cough) so I have the feeling I'm probably losing some people by talking about linguistics. But hey, I've got to follow my own interest.
When this all started a couple years ago, a few of us were talking about how long it would take to start changing the romance languages and their masc/fem structure. Now we know.
Everything about language is fascinating in my eyes. Linguiphile? Is that a word?
I think your angle on this essay falls right into an anarchist’s perspective. How language just “is” and the changing of it or ‘regulating’ it isn’t always for the better. It’s a very personal thing to the native-speakers and they/we just don’t need outsiders fucking with it.
Even the urban dictionary has become woke and obnoxious lately, rife with inanity. And I truly think standard dictionaries and definitions are sacrosanct and should not be altered. Added to maybe, as a sidebar - this is where the urban dictionary or slang can come in - but not totally alter the main definition. Too much like the rewriting of history for my liking.
As for losing subs. I feel for them if they aren’t open to different ideas and paths of exploration. Echo chambers are so boring.
I actually am not without my sympathy for the idea of linguistic reform. When there are worbs like "democracy", "fascism", "socialism", "capitalism" floating around, and people interpret them differently based on whether their political affiliation sorts them into mental categories of "good" and "bad"... that makes communication "across the aisle" more difficult.
If certain words are causing confusion, conscientious communicators should avoid using them... or develop work-arounds... or at least call people's attention to the source of the confusion. I'm all for neologisms, for example. But I haven't seen too many proposals for linguistic reform that are actually well thought out.
Your second paragraph both confirmed and belied the first. Is it the linguistics that need reform? Or the speakers/users?
I agree words are powerful and can be used to great effect if used properly. It’s when the wrong use is what “goes viral” and becomes the norm that it becomes trouble.
Neologisms are fine except when they displace the original intent. I think that’s a trouble spot.
Very interesting, thanks. Are you familiar with the anarchist Gustav Landauer's short article urging people not to learn Esperanto?
"Only the most trivial, petty, and unimportant things can be expressed by an artificial product: only what is old and has been endlessly regurgitated – nothing new, fermenting, creative, ingenious. Language is alive. It has not only grown – it grows continuously. It contains a never-ending past, just as it contains a never-ending future.
"Artificial creations do not allow humans to think further and to craft new things. They can only translate what has already been said many times. They can never capture what is most important in a language: the fine shades, the nuances, the unspeakable. In the grown languages, a lot of what is said lives between the words as an unutterable element. In Esperanto we can only blabber".
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/922gyj/do_not_learn_esperanto_gustav_landauer/
No! I hadn't seen that! Thanks!
I don't know too much about Esperanto other than it seems like a better bet for a second language than English for *SOME* speakers of Romance + Germanic languages... namely the ones who can't or won't attain a conversational level in English.
What do you think about Esperanto?
I can certainly see the advantages of some kind of lingua franca, having just attended a gathering in Italy where, at one point, a Spanish-speaker was being translated into Italian for the audience and then, privately, on into English for my benefit, although I was able to converse perfectly well with him in French! I think Landauer was right in that Esperanto could not, and should not, ever be treated as a real living language, but if it is regarded simply as a tool for communication, I don't see the problem. Like you, I don't like the use of English as the international language. Not only does it go hand in hand with Anglo-American imperialism, but it also serves to flatten the English language itself - turn it into a kind of lifeless Esperanto, in fact!
I couldn't agree more! When I read Orwell's classic essay "Politics and the English Language", I bemoan how far we've fallen since then. For instance, the near-total disappearance of "shall" from vernacular speech. This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder whether we're already a century deep on Newspeak.
Think about it. Here's a quote from "The Principles of Newspeak":
"The A vocabulary. The A vocabulary consisted of the words needed for the business of everyday life — for such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely of words that we already possess words like hit, run, dog, tree, sugar, house, field — but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary their number was extremely small, while their meanings were far more rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle was followed here: in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in other cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred meaning were not etymologically connected, one or other of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, no such word as cut, its meaning being sufficiently covered by the noun-verb knife. Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix -ful to the noun-verb, and adverbs by adding -wise. Thus for example, speedful meant ‘rapid’ and speedwise meant ‘quickly’. Certain of our present-day adjectives, such as good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained, but their total number was very small. There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be arrived at by adding -ful to a noun-verb. None of the now-existing adverbs was retained, except for a very few already ending in -wise: the -wise termination was invariable. The word well, for example, was replaced by goodwise.
In addition, any word — this again applied in principle to every word in the language — could be negatived by adding the affix un-, or could be strengthened by the affix plus-, or, for still greater emphasis, doubleplus-. Thus, for example, uncold meant ‘warm’, while pluscold and doublepluscold meant, respectively, ‘very cold’ and ‘superlatively cold’. It was also possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by prepositional affixes such as ante-, post-, up-, down-, etc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word good, there was no need for such a word as bad, since the required meaning was equally well — indeed, better — expressed by ungood. All that was necessary, in any case where two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of them to suppress. Dark, for example, could be replaced by unlight, or light by undark, according to preference.
The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below all inflexions followed the same rules. Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and ended in -ed. The preterite of steal was stealed, the preterite of think was thinked, and so on throughout the language, all such forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke, taken, etc., being abolished. All plurals were made by adding -s or -es as the case might be. The plurals of man, ox, life, were mans, oxes, lifes. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by adding -er, -est (good, gooder, goodest), irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed.
The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstrative adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed their ancient usage, except that whom had been scrapped as unnecessary, and the shall, should tenses had been dropped, all their uses being covered by will and would."
Fast forward 'til now and vocabularies are shrinking, shall is all but gone, most people can't use the word "whom" correctly, and beautiful English words like hither, thither, thenceforth, heretofore, henceforth, thence, whence, whither, etc are gone.
Sometimes I'll be reading something like "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay, which was published in 1841, and I'll realize how beautiful and amazing English can be. There's really no question in my mind that the decline of Western Civilization is occurring in our languages, which then affects our thoughts.
As Orwell so aptly put it:
"Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."
By the way, I'll probably write something posing the question "Is Modern English Newspeak?" If you have any thoughts on the subject, I'm all ears. I know you're a great appreciator of Orwell.
By the way, I don't know how familiar you are with Korzybski & General Semantics, but he believed that English was functionally defective in differentiating different kinds of meaning. Years into the virus debate, most people still can't wrap their minds around the idea that no one can prove the existence of viruses. They seem confused about what existence is. And we're talking about many very intelligent people. It appears to me that this is a failure of language. My theory is that English massive over-uses the indicative mood, conflating figures of speech with factual statements, idioms, etc.
Korzybski recommended using more embedded referents to better structure sentences, specifically proposing certain "extensional devices" to clarify meaning.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhvqPkupXo
But as far as I can tell, this problem simply doesn't exist in Romance languages! There are endless embedded referents in verb conjugations which modify mood as well as person, gender, and tense.
Lastly I'll mention evidentials. Many languages have them, but English doesn't.
Here's an excerpt from something I've been working on:
"Different languages also have different verbs to refer to different kinds of knowing. In linguistics, there’s something called “evidentials” which refer to ways that different languages have of implicitly conveying epistemological data how the speaker knows something.
For example, some languages use different versions of “to be” to refer to first-hand knowledge as opposed to second-hand information, which is to say hearsay.
If you personally witnessed an action you were later telling someone about, you would use one word, but if you merely heard about the action from someone else, you would use another.
This seems like it could spare people a lot of problems. And there’s a pretty big difference between the sentences “she cheated on me” and “I heard that she cheated on him”, isn’t there?
Here, let me give you an example of how one language treats evidentials.
WHAT ARE EVIDENTIALS?
In Anishinaabe-mowin (Ojibwe language), evidentials play a significant role in conveying the source and certainty of information. Evidentials are grammatical markers that indicate the speaker's source of knowledge and the level of certainty about a statement. Here are some key points about evidentials in Anishinaabe-mowin:
Direct Evidence: This indicates that the speaker has personally witnessed or experienced the event. An example might include using specific verb forms or particles that imply the speaker saw or heard the event directly.
Indirect Evidence: This suggests that the speaker has inferred the information from indirect sources, such as hearsay or deduction. For instance, using certain particles or verb forms might indicate that the information was obtained from someone else or inferred from other evidence.
Reported Speech: This evidential type is used when the speaker is reporting what someone else has said. It often involves specific verbal constructions or particles that denote the information as second-hand.
Inferential Evidence: This type of evidentiality is used when the speaker infers information based on available evidence rather than direct observation.
These evidential markers are crucial for understanding the nuances of communication in Anishinaabe-mowin, as they help clarify the reliability and source of the information being conveyed. The use of evidentials in Anishinaabe-mowin underscores the importance of source and certainty in the transmission of knowledge within the culture.
So here we appear to have four different words that describe “is-ness”.
If you were talking about your own perception, you could say “Niwaabamaa nindinim”, which means “I see my daughter.”
If you were speaking about that you had not directly observed, you might say something like “Giinawind gii-pi-izhaad inini”, which means “We heard that the man came.” The form "gii-pi-izhaad" would indicate that you had not directly observed the action you are describing but only know about it from others' statements.
Similarly, you would say “Gii-ikidowag gaa-gii-ikidowa,” which means “They said what they said.” The verb form "Gaa-gii-ikidowag" is used to denote that the information comes from someone else's speech.
If one were referring to what one believes because of inference, one could say something like “Gii-bimaadizwan gaa-izhi-gii-bimaadizwan,” which means “He must have been alive, it seems.” The use of "gaa-izhi-gii-bimaadizwan" suggests inference based on evidence.
Now, I don’t speak Anishnaabe-mowin, so I don’t know how accurate it would be to say that there are four types of “is-ness” in that language. But I do know that languages treat “is-ness” differently. And why shouldn’t they?"
I wonder if so many people would still be convinced that invisible strands of RNA floating around in the air can kill human beings. Aren't we supposed to be apex predators? Aren't we the species who crossed the Pacific on fucking rafts? Didn't we cut our teeth hunting mammoths with fucking spears? It boggles my mind that people could be scared of something 50,000 times smaller than an ant. For fuck's sake, viruses don't even breathe!
But I digress...
No, viruses do not breathe. Breathing is a process associated with living organisms, involving the exchange of gases (such as oxygen and carbon dioxide) with the environment, typically for the purpose of cellular respiration to produce energy. Viruses, however, are not considered living organisms in the traditional sense because they lack the cellular machinery necessary for metabolism, including breathing.
Viruses are essentially composed of genetic material (DNA or RNA) encased in a protein coat and, in some cases, a lipid envelope. They do not possess cellular structures, such as mitochondria or ribosomes, which are required for metabolic processes, including respiration. Instead, viruses rely entirely on infecting host cells to replicate and produce energy. Once inside a host cell, they hijack the cell's machinery to replicate their genetic material and produce new virus particles.
ChatGPT: The size difference between a virus and an ant is substantial.
Here's a comparison to illustrate just how much smaller a virus is than an ant:
Virus Size:
Viruses vary in size, but most viruses range from about 20 to 300 nanometers (nm) in diameter.
For example, the influenza virus is approximately 100 nm in diameter, and the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is about 120 nm in diameter.
Ant Size:
Ants vary in size depending on the species, but a common range for ants is from about 1 millimeter (mm) to 20 millimeters (mm) in length.
For instance, the common black garden ant (Lasius niger) is about 5 mm long.
Conversion of units:
1 millimeter (mm) = 1,000,000 nanometers (nm).
Comparison:
If we take an average virus size of 100 nm and an average ant size of 5 mm (5,000,000 nm), we can compare the two.
To determine how many times smaller a virus is compared to an ant:
Size of an ant
Size of a virus
=
5
,
000
,
000
nm
100
nm
=
50
,
000
Size of a virus
Size of an ant
=
100nm
5,000,000nm
=50,000
Therefore, a virus is approximately 50,000 times smaller than an ant.
Great essay! I’d like to see an alphabet in downtown nowhere Mexico trying to get the locals to change pronouns. They’d prob end up on a milk carton. And rightly so…trying to push the bullshit on everyone else to spare their own mental illness.
Now to go watch all the videos… this is interesting!
I'm glad somewhere appreciates this stuff! Like I said at the beginning of the essay, I kinda just fell down the YouTube linguistics rabbit hole. I gotta say, there are worse uses of time! But I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing my readers want me doing... Activists are notorious for endlessly talking about how we talk about things (cough, cough, Earth First!, cough) so I have the feeling I'm probably losing some people by talking about linguistics. But hey, I've got to follow my own interest.
When this all started a couple years ago, a few of us were talking about how long it would take to start changing the romance languages and their masc/fem structure. Now we know.
Everything about language is fascinating in my eyes. Linguiphile? Is that a word?
I think your angle on this essay falls right into an anarchist’s perspective. How language just “is” and the changing of it or ‘regulating’ it isn’t always for the better. It’s a very personal thing to the native-speakers and they/we just don’t need outsiders fucking with it.
Even the urban dictionary has become woke and obnoxious lately, rife with inanity. And I truly think standard dictionaries and definitions are sacrosanct and should not be altered. Added to maybe, as a sidebar - this is where the urban dictionary or slang can come in - but not totally alter the main definition. Too much like the rewriting of history for my liking.
As for losing subs. I feel for them if they aren’t open to different ideas and paths of exploration. Echo chambers are so boring.
I actually am not without my sympathy for the idea of linguistic reform. When there are worbs like "democracy", "fascism", "socialism", "capitalism" floating around, and people interpret them differently based on whether their political affiliation sorts them into mental categories of "good" and "bad"... that makes communication "across the aisle" more difficult.
If certain words are causing confusion, conscientious communicators should avoid using them... or develop work-arounds... or at least call people's attention to the source of the confusion. I'm all for neologisms, for example. But I haven't seen too many proposals for linguistic reform that are actually well thought out.
Your second paragraph both confirmed and belied the first. Is it the linguistics that need reform? Or the speakers/users?
I agree words are powerful and can be used to great effect if used properly. It’s when the wrong use is what “goes viral” and becomes the norm that it becomes trouble.
Neologisms are fine except when they displace the original intent. I think that’s a trouble spot.