Language and Social Position Essay -- Expository Essays

Language and Social PositionAs I sat in my never-all-that-comfortable seat at the theater to watch Titanic for the second snip on the big screen, a thought quite alien came over me good usage in language. This film, based on the 1912 disaster, went to the extremes on details to arrive everything about it convey the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The language of the film was scripted as best to the year 1912 as was the model make of the ship itself. The film showed the language of both the upper crust (nobility of America) and the lower class of different nations of the world. Concentrating on the educated, monied, upper-class, their language was so pure, concise, and definitive. The best compositors case that I can quote from the film was a line from young Rose, when trying to get it through her thick-skulled, snobbish mothers head that there were not nice boats for everyone on board, in fact less than half of the passengers would get a spot on a lifeboat. She say s to her mother, Not enough by half In four words, Rose has said what would have taken me at least ten words to say in our modern language usage, something similar to at that place are not enough boats for even half of the people Not enough by half is a phrase I easily comprehended, just I have never heard a phrase so worded in my life (in contemporary conversations, dialogue, speeches, etc.). It reminds me more of diction in writings from the past, that authors such as Shakespeare or Benjamin Franklin may have used. Why isnt a phrase like Not enough by half used nowadays in modern American English? This phrase is clear, concise and is not difficult to say. Robert Hall 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 meter by which we judge one another. Language was created to communicate, and shouldnt we communicate in the easiest and most efficie nt manner? We should heed Robert Halls advice and make the rules of good usage based 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 genial 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 stop judgment of others based on language usage and to start to become followers of Hall (well call ourselves Halloons), and make our language clear, concise and efficient.