Creating language
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

I am sorry but it is a quirk of writing these articles that I do not always manage to overcome. So as I sit down to write this missive, I am still early enough to wish you all a Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year. The quirk is that when you read this, Christmas will have come and gone and 2009 will already have started. Well, at least you know I didn't forget you completely and I do wish you all every success in 2009! I also hope that you had a peaceful Christmas and that whenever you suggested any activity to your spouse, partner, friends, relatives or, particularly, your children or grandchildren, you did not meet with the response: "Meh".

Evidently, "Meh" is the new word for indifference, mediocre or boring. The term, or rather the lazy grunt, comes from an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer offers to take the children on a day trip and Lisa and Bart, eyes glued to the TV, listlessly utter "meh" in response. So the interjection "meh" has been included in the 30th anniversary edition of the Collins English Dictionary following an invitation to the public to submit new words, or new meanings to existing words, which are now used in everyday language. Evidently this is just one example of how people are now writing down spoken sounds in texts (or is it txts?), e-mails and on-line.

Is this a sign of things to come? Will our language shrink to become a series of grunts and humms amid written abbreviations such as c u l8er? Maybe our language will evolve to become like that of the Amazonian (the rain forest, not the website) hunter-gatherer tribe called the Piraha. The Piraha language is said to not even sound like a language but to be more like the melodic chattering of exotic songbirds.

According to Daniel Everett, who has written a book about the Piraha after spending thirty years living with the tribe and learning their language, Piraha is unrelated to any known language. It has one of the smallest sets of speech sounds in the world, with three vowels and eight consonants for men, whilst women are limited to three vowels and only seven consonants. There is a wide array of tones, stresses and syllable lengths but the Piraha can also converse by whistling, singing or humming. There are no words for 'all' or 'every', no numbers and no specific colours: a thing is its own particular colour.

I am not a complete Luddite. I do use new technology, abbreviate my txts (in a fashion) and am all for an easy life and increased efficiency. But I do think that we will lose something important if we stand by and watch our language diminish, shrink and become a series of abbreviations and acronyms. Language is important to creativity. I was once told that learning a new language assists innovation because it provides a different point of view. Everyone will have heard the stories that Eskimos have many different words for snow. If this is true, then learning these will immediately allow you to see snow in a different light.

Even simple everyday words have deeper meanings than their current use necessarily implies. Evidently, ease comes from the old French aise meaning elbow room. So disease means not having your elbows in a relaxed position. When have you heard an ill person say that they do not have their elbows in a relaxed position? Other languages seem to be able to maintain this development. Displaced people in parts of Darfur are referred to as jimjaabu, which translates as: "the rife brought them". But a look at the recent words included in the English dictionary shows that our creativity is predominantly aimed at new derogatory words such as Twonk!

In NDT, new words predominate in the names of companies or products but we do seem to be stuck in derivates of 'son' and 'scan'. Maybe in 2009 we can make our own contribution to preventing the deterioration of the English language and endeavour to come up with more original words to describe new developments. Maybe we could even persuade the editor to offer a prize for the best!
What did you say? "Meh?"

Editor’s note: Hear! Hear! £20 book token for the best original word to describe a new development – email respectable entries only to ndtnews@bindt.org

Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author's own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within the NDT Newspaper. They do not represent the views of the IVC, Serco Assurance or the HSE who funded the PANI projects.

Letters can be mailed to The Editor, NDT News, Newton Building, St George's Avenue, Northampton NN2 6JB. Fax: 01604 89 3861; E-mail: ndtnews@bindt.org or e-mail Bernard McGrath direct at Bernard.McGrath@sercoassurance.com