I will now lament the death of learning and the disintegration of the English language.

In this computer age we live in - the age of e-mail and Web-speak and chat room blather - the way we write has started to change. This is not surprising, and there’s nothing really wrong with it. Languages evolve, words die out, new words take their place, turns of phrase come and go.

Such changes take place naturally and inevitably. I may bemoan the loss of some great words and phrases from the past that are no longer in use today (“wordridden", for example), but there are newer words and phrases that have come along that are just as great as the old ones. I mean, how were Kafka-esque situations described before Kafka came along? How did people connect before they could be “on the same wavelength”? And just to go on a complete tangent: I find it interesting that, all of sudden, people are now “on the same page” instead of “on the same wavelength”. Why the technological regression? Or are people talking about being on the same Web page? I wonder about these things.

Linguistic change is all well and good. But what I hate, what I absolutely detest, is the artificial blowing up or dumbing down of language that seems to take place more and more these days. What I mean by “blowing up” is fake, pretentious corporate-speak that consists of hugely inflated words full of nothing but hot air. What I mean by “dumbing down” (a dubious phrase in and of itself, I know) is written language that seems to be directed at someone with the IQ of a carrot.

Inflated language has always been around, but I think that it was perhaps a bit more hidden before the advent of the Internet age. The proliferation of business-oriented websites has made this type of language much more visible to people such as myself who would otherwise have nothing to do with such corporate bluster. However, I can tune out bluster. I will roll my eyes at it, I will snort in derision, but I will not be further affected.

But corporate-speak is infecting everyday language. Case in point: people turning nouns into verbs. Let’s take the word “task". When I read something like “I have been tasked to create a website” or “she was tasked with ordering the pizzas,” I just want to scream. It is the year 2000. The word “task" is a NOUN. It was also once a verb - three hundred years ago. As a verb it is now obsolete, unless you want to use it rather poetically in the sense of burdening or oppressing. It is not to be used as an overblown way of saying that you were asked to do something, or that you have to do something, or that you were given the job of doing something, or that you are required to do something.

In a similar vein: I recently bought a bottle of HP Sauce (sort of an English version of America’s A1 steak sauce - vinegary and brown). On this bottle of simple, down-home English goodness, it says that the sauce’s “uniquely distinctive taste sensation is the result of HP’s dedication to sourcing the highest quality ingredients…" I mean, please. Sourcing? Try finding, obtaining, tracking down, acquiring, procuring, using… “Sourcing" is not a verb. It wasn’t a verb 300 years ago, and it is not a verb now. And using it as a verb on a bottle of vinegary brown sauce does not somehow make that brown sauce more impressive. It just makes me roll my eyes and wonder who was paid how much money to write something so ridiculous on a bottle of brown sauce. It also makes me wonder why it is the English seem to think that it’s the Americans alone who are promoting the downfall of the English language.

But I digress. My point is that the English language has/contains/possesses/provides one with many, many, many perfectly good verbs. There is no need to take a noun and force it into acting like something it’s not. It sounds ugly and artificial, and we do not approve.

My other gripe is the dumbing down of - well, everything, actually. Now I realize that, as far as language goes, I’ve had a huge advantage compared to other people. Both of my parents are well-educated and literate; they are avid readers, excellent writers, veritable walking dictionaries. I guess I grew up in a household full of big words and complicated sentences (apparently at the tender age of 4 or so, upon being prompted to say something impressive to somebody or another, I asked my dad if he wanted me to say something “totally irrelevant” - I don’t remember this, but my parents swear it’s true). In addition to this, I simply love words, and I always get a little thrill when I read a sentence or hear a phrase that uses language in an unexpected and exciting manner.

That’s not meant to sound smug. I will be the first to admit that using “big words” just for the sake of it is arrogant and irritating and most unimpressive. But dumbing your language down is just as irritating. By “dumbing down” I don’t mean writing simply and clearly and properly so that your words are easily understood - I mean writing things that are just wrong and that sound like they were written by a 6-year-old because you’re afraid your audience won’t understand otherwise.

Case in point: I was recently looking at some website that had a little box in which you were supposed to write your birth date. But the site didn’t say, “Write your birth date in this box.” The site said, “Write your born on date in this box.”

I nearly fell off my chair in a combination of hysterical laughter and absolute dismay. Did someone really think that a visitor to this site would not understand the phrase “birth date”? Maybe they thought someone confronted with “birth date” would think, “What date was I birth? Man, what’s that supposed to mean?” However, if they wrote “born on date,” a visitor to the site might think, “What date was I born on? Oh, I know that.”

Maybe I’m completely off the mark, and the whole “born on” thing was just a fluke and is not really indicative of any sort of dumbing down. But it does seem to me that, instead of continually trying to raise linguistic standards - or at least keep them on the level of grammatical correctness - society appeals to something even lower than the lowest common denominator, which does everyone a disservice.

I have two more recent examples of this sort of dumbing down.

The first example is from Germany. The big linguistic crisis in Germany over the past few years was caused by the German spelling “reform." Some brilliant minds in Germany got together and decided that, since German kids were having a hard time learning how to spell, they - the brilliant minds - would simply change the way some German words were spelled, so that spelling would be more uniform and, hence, easier. Most people seemed to oppose this “reform" but it went through anyway (there’s democracy for you). Now, in addition to confusing spelling (which was not really done away with through this “reform"), we also have German words that just look really stupid.

The whole idea was stupid. It’s “dumbing down” in action: if it’s too hard, then throw it out. Don’t come up with better ways to teach it, don’t encourage kids to learn it as it is, just change it so that it’s easier.

Anyway, the Germans think they have it hard with their spelling? Take a look at English. When you consider the pronunciation of English words, where’s the logic behind the spelling of something like, “a trough of tough dough”? At least we haven’t recently experienced a really serious move to start spelling English words more logically or phonetically (“uh trawf uhv tuff do”). Natural languages don’t follow hard and fast rules. You have to either learn Esperanto, or just deal with it.

On a different but somewhat related note: in England, there is apparently a debate taking place as to whether the works of Shakespeare should continue to be taught in schools. One argument against teaching Shakespeare is that his works are perhaps no longer relevant to young people today.

I guess we’re supposed to ignore the fact that Shakespeare’s works are great, timeless literary classics; or the fact that thousands of the turns of phrase we use every day (“in my mind’s eye” and the like) come from Shakespeare; or the fact that countless modern movies, plays, works of art, and pieces of writing are based on the works of Shakespeare.

The second argument against continuing to teach Shakespeare - and the thing it really all comes down to - is this: Shakespeare is just too hard for kids to understand. Ah, now it’s all clear to me. We certainly don’t want to tax (or task, I might say) those poor young brains with something that’s too hard, so - classic or not - Shakespeare has to go. If the kids don’t get it the first time around, then it mustn’t be worth learning. Just say “no" to big words!

I think there’s a method to the madness (did anyone catch that reference to Shakespeare?). See, if they change the way things are spelled, or if they stop teaching really difficult things in school, then kids will get better test scores because everything will be easier. And if kids are getting better test scores, then that must mean that kids are getting smarter. By teaching less and less in schools, they’ll actually be educating a generation of geniuses!

Is it really any wonder that kids grow into adults who write things like “tasking", “sourcing" and “born on date”?

To be honest, I think that, in general, e-mail and the World Wide Web are doing some really good things in regards to reading and writing. At least when people are surfing the Web, they have to read (it’s not like just staring at a television). And when people write e-mails to each other or write things for websites, they may not always be creating great works of literature, but at least they’re writing, which is something I would venture to guess most people don’t do a whole lot these days.

And yet, as someone who loves language, I wish people would take the time to think just a little bit about the language they’re using. I wish that learning was encouraged and that meaningful language was appreciated. I wish that everyone would ask themselves the following question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous language, or to take arms against a sea of corporate-speak and ignorance, and by opposing end them?

And I wish that everyone would come up with the same answer: ‘tis nobler to take arms!