As new generations are raised on the Internet, the claim that English is steadily becoming a ruined language has become a popular one. The idea of the English language dying in the face of colloquialisms and moronic speech is not new, however. Authors such as C.S. Lewis and Mark Twain were also concerned about the status and quality f the English language as a whole. As quality and scholarship falls, vocabulary is stifled and limited. Sentences are poorly structured, arguments merely a tangle of unrelated words that say a lot and yet nothing at all.
"It would be very difficult to find a really clever 'situation' in Cooper's
books, and still more difficult to find one of any kind which has failed to
render absurd by his handling of it."
- Mark Twain, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (1895)
One of my favorite essays; it is uproariously funny and beautifully written.
Check out the rest of the article after the break!
