Right, then

[gothwalk]

There is no central authority for the English language. Therefore, I'm claiming it. I am now IT as far as English is concerned. You have queries on English, come to me, and I'll ignore most of them. This is mostly because I'm taking on this authority with two things in mind, and one footnote.

First and foremost, the word 'fail', and all its variants, are now, hereby and forever, excised from English. They no longer exist.

Second, the pseudo-word 'meh' is likewise sentenced to destruction. It is returned to being a nonsense syllable, carrying no meaning. It did not have far to go.

Footnote: 'Bleah' is on a last warning.

Carry on, then.

Comments

[natural20.livejournal.com]

meh.

Authority claiming fail.

Everyone else, go on about your business.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Perfect example, cheers!

[wolfette]

how about "bah!"?

[sciamachy.livejournal.com]

I like "Bah!" though I often follow it with "Mooh!" and "Oinkh!"

& I'm sorry Drew, but I fall on the side of descriptive linguistics - language is ultimately a democratic thing, a fluid, living thing that defies prescriptive linguistics. Prescriptive linguistics is rarely listened to by the majority: it's the lone voice of linguistic conservatism, Luddites trying to chuck their clogs & spanners in the machinery of change. Language isn't degrading - it's evolving. People make things easier for themselves over time. Beauty or ugliness, and judgements of quality don't really come into it - it's massively subjective. I lost all respect for prescriptive linguistics when I found that they'd tried to shoehorn the English language, a mongrel mix of Germanic & Romance languages with bits from pretty much everywhere in the world, into the grammar rules of Classical Latin, a dead language even at the time! Anyone speaking English then would have known it had its own grammar, which isn't the grammar it has now either, nor the grammar it will have in 30, 50 or 100 years' time. It's this endless adaptation & versatility that makes language so damned cool.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear. The things today's prescriptivists furiously battle to preserve are often the same things that past generations' self-appointed language guardians struggled to defeat. (Or, oddly enough, they're fighting against something that they incorrectly perceive to be a perverse modern innovation, such as singular "they," due to a lack of being widely read or linguistically well informed.) (Not that I'm accusing gothwalk of being in with THAT Safirean crowd!)

Oddly, it took actually getting a master's degree in English for me to fully accept that position, but there you have it. I admit some things irk me, but I try not to be too curmudgeonly about it. It definitely takes some effort, though.

[gothic-fraggle.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear, hear! And to help ensure their survival, I shall teach these words to all my students tomorrow. And include them if I ever write a coursebook. There are more non-native speakers of English in the world than native. My evil plan cannot FAIL.

Moi.

[nightmares-fear.livejournal.com]

Hey if you're getting rid of words this is my list:

crux
juxtaposition / juxtaposed
plethora
centrafugal/ centrefuge (I dont care if they're spelt wrong, nobody in the Language Bin will give a damn.)
the phrase: "there in lies the rub"
any words that end in "sks" or "scs" eg masks, risks, discs etc


I keep a running tally somewhere... will get back to you with the rest.

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Chill out bud' if I was cringing everything is spelt wrong or misused I would have had a heart attack from the over affluence of the likes of "rawk", "kewl" and other "LOLz" "OMGs" and the over pluralisation of things which are inherently unique (like, such as, South Africaz and The Internetz)

;)

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

The word fail? Don't you mean the sentence/response fail? Or do you propose people saying "I unpassed my driving test?"

Anyway, I've had it on good authority that fail is so 2008, and only the terribly unfashionable will be using it in 2009. So you can rest easy.

[meehaneo.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the first thing on the agenda of any single authority (especially in Ireland) ... is the split!

Along the longs of "We ex-members of the the Official Authority for Widgets now form the Authorised Widget Organisation"

You now have to argue with yourself!

(also what about "doh?")

[silme.livejournal.com]

Hey, for years I was all for stamping out misuse of the word 'get'. Go for it! :)

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

If you're going to excise words from English, how about getting rid of "irregardless"?