English only expands, never contracts

Every few months, a reflective article appears somewhere in the anglophone world about the change in the meanings of words, or their entire extinction. In the latest one that appeared last week, contained obituary notices for words such as ‘golly’ and ‘gosh’, not to mention ‘blimey’, ‘gee’, ‘gadzooks’ and even more mundane words such as cobbler, crossword and playschool. But, to paraphrase the celebrated wordsmith Mark Twain, the report of these words’ death is an exaggeration.

And the reason is simple. Despite the prevalence of the internet — the latter classified as a word on the upswing —the Anglosphere does not speak the same tongue. While some English-speaking nations have trampled over the genteel exclamations of yore, other ones still cling to them, in no small measure due to continuing old-fashioned local usage.

For instance, the word ‘expedite’ will probably draw blank stares in the four main English-speaking nations: the UK, US, Canada and Australia. But that word — along with related ones such as ‘intimate’ — still enjoys widespread currency in the labyrinths of south Asian bureaucracy.

It would be safe to assert, therefore, that despite being hounded out of certain arenas, every antediluvian English word lives on in some remote corner of the anglophone world. English, like the Universe, is only expanding.