Language and Social Position Essay -- Expository Essays

Language and Social PositionAs I sat in my never-all-that-comfortable seat at the theater to construe Titanic for the second time on the big screen, a belief quite alien came over me good usage in wrangle. This shoot down, found on the 1912 disaster, went to the extremes on details to make everything about it convey the youthful nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The vocabulary of the film was scripted as best to the year 1912 as was the model made of the ship itself. The film showed the language of both the upper crust (nobility of America) and the lower anatomy of different nations of the world. Concentrating on the educated, monied, upper-class, their language was so pure, concise, and definitive. The best example that I can quote from the film was a line from young Rose, when nerve-racking to get it through her thick-skulled, snobbish mothers head that there were not copious boats for every star on board, in fact less than half(prenominal) of the passengers wou ld get a spot on a lifeboat. She says to her mother, not enough by half In four words, Rose has said what would engage taken me at least ten words to say in our youthful language usage, something similar to There are not enough boats for even half of the people Not enough by half is a musical phrase I easily comprehended, but I have never hear a phrase so worded in my life (in contemporary conversations, dialogue, speeches, etc.). It reminds me much of diction in writings from the past, that authors such as Shakespeare or asa dulcis Franklin may have used. Why isnt a phrase like Not enough by half used today in modern American English? This phrase is clear, concise and is not difficult to say. Robert foyer would probably praise such a phrase as a fine example of good usage. It ... ...ldve thought groovy and crazy, man would have made a comeback, huh? Language usage should not be the measurement by which we judge one another. Language was created to communicate, and shouldnt w e communicate in the easiest and nearly efficient manner? We should heed Robert Halls advice and make the rules of good usage base on the most efficient way of saying (hand-out) govern our language usage. However, in reality, it seems that William Tanners thoughts creep into our opinion of good usage and connect it with loving etiquette, thereby creating judgments of social class and distinction based on one anothers speech. We, as listeners and speakers, need to make a conscious decision to blockage judgment of others based on language usage and to start to make followers of Hall (well call ourselves Halloons), and make our language clear, concise and efficient.