Who decides what words are actually words?
Because you’ve probably at some point said a word and had someone say back to you, “That’s
not a *real* word.”
That might’ve been because you’re a kid, and you’re using some slang word that your
parents don’t know.
Or it might be because you’re in certain niche circles and using a relatively new word
that people outside those circles haven’t heard very much.
Or it could’ve just been a dialectical difference because the person you’re talking to is
from a different region and speaks a different form of English.
Whatever the reason, most of us have experienced this.
And it’s hard to have a comeback for the accusation that your word isn’t “real”
because how do you prove that it is?
You use the word, other people understand the word, doesn’t that make it real?
Does it really need a stamp of approval from some higher power for it to be “real”?
Well, for a lot of people, they turn to dictionaries to know what real words are.
If you’ve been through middle school or high school, I’d bet that at some point
you started a really bad essay with a dictionary definition.
I did it too, don’t worry, we all had to start somewhere.
But we do that not only to fluff out our essays to reach an arbitrary word count, but also
because we see dictionaries as authoritative tools that can help give us some order in
a language that is extremely chaotic.
I mean, there are so many words in English, and more are coming into existence every day.
Plus the words we do have are constantly changing.
I mean, have you ever tried to read Shakespeare?
That’s English from only a few hundred years ago, and for many of us, it’s really difficult
if not impossible to read.
And that’s only Early Modern English.
Before that, Old English and Middle English were even less like our modern form of English.
And hundreds or thousands of years from now, English will have evolved so much that we
would probably struggle to understand it, if we could at all.
So we’re given this thing, language, that is massive and constantly changing, and we’re
told to use it as our sole method of communicating with people.
That’s scary.
And it makes sense that we reach out for some structure.
It can help us feel in control to say, “These are real words that I understand and am comfortable
with, and these are not.”
For a lot of people, change is scary.
Things they don’t understand are scary.
Especially when that thing is the tool they rely on everyday to communicate.
But the problem with our search for structure and authority in language is that -- it doesn’t really exist.
There’s no Head of English who decides what is and isn’t a word.
Even dictionaries don’t decide what English is, they merely record it as they see it.
All of the big major dictionaries today are descriptive, not prescriptive.
That means that simply see how language is being used in the world, and they write it down.
They don’t dictate what we can or can’t say, which would be prescriptive.
They don’t prescribe language; they just describe it.
And that’s a good thing.
I don’t think you want some all-powerful person or group telling you what you can or
can’t say, right?
“Oh, so that means I can say all the slurs I want?”
I mean, you technically *can*, but I would advise you not to.
They’re slurs for a reason.
They’re mean and hurtful -- and anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.
The truth is, dictionaries don’t decide what language is, they just do their best
to document it.
And sometimes they’re a little slow to catch up as they ensure that a word is widespread
in its usage and has a clear definition.
So if you’re looking to dictionaries to verify what is a “real” word, the only
thing you’re really verifying is if a dictionary has yet become aware of its existence and
decided to document it.
Dictionaries add new words constantly, and words usually have to be in usage for a while
before they get added to the dictionary.
So for all that time before they get added, they’re still “real”.
I mean really, any word that is spoken is “real” in that it now exists.
But I think what we really mean by “real” isn’t necessarily “does it exist?” but
it’s more “is it understood by other people?”
And if that’s the case, the only thing that makes a word real is if its in use.
If we stopped documenting language entirely, we would still understand each others’ words
-- and those understandings would be based simply on what people are using.
If a word was widely in use a few hundred years ago but has fallen out of usage today
to the point that nobody understands it, then it wouldn’t be a “real” word in that sense.
But a brand new word that was just invented last month could be “real” if enough people
understand it.
Most new words start off in one smaller community and then spread to the rest of us.
And at some point, every single word we use today was “made-up”.
None of these words occur in nature, they’re all artificial, they’ve just become “real”
by the repeated use of them over the years.
There are a bunch of really common words today that someone from the 60s or 70s wouldn’t
understand at all, like “smartphone” for example.
But I don’t think anyone is arguing now that “smartphone” isn’t a real word.
Because every word isn’t considered “real” until it is.
For years, people have been arguing over whether “Latinx”, the gender-neutral alternative
to Latino or Latina, is a real word.
It’s first known usage in English is from eleven years ago in 2007, but just a couple
months ago in September, it was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
It’s now used by and understood by tons and tons of people.
So it is, without a doubt, real, and it was real before it was added to the dictionary.
It’s just a more recent addition to what we think of as “real” words.
So if there are any words that you’re seeing around a lot that you don’t think are real,
chances are that they’re already real words, even if you’re only hearing them for the
first time.
Language is changing constantly, and if you can’t accept that, it’s just going to
leave you behind.
Anyway, that’s all I had for you today.
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Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.