The Lunacy That is Language

For the love of the Great Keanu, can we please streamline language? I’m not sure if all languages are like this, but in English based languages, it is absurd to the point of illogical incomprehensibility. I love language. I love the ability of being able to convey concepts and thoughts and identity to others, and that they can understand the gestures and verbal sounds we utter. Even that is limited, though. Over the eons, our languages have evolved. I mean that literally, as they have changed slowly over time. Our modern American (which I maintain is a cousin to, but not the same as, English) evolved from Olde English (mixed with Spanish and Italian, etc), which evolved from Latin, and so-forth.

So I get that language is an amalgamation of previous languages. Much like we are learning to manipulate the genes we’ve inherited, why can’t we do the same with language? Why can’t we “intelligently design” language?

For instance, what is the difference between a TV and a monitor? I own a metric fuckton (because an imperial fuckton is a silly imaginary unit of measurement) of computers. One is hooked up to my old TV. Why are the other computers hooked up to monitors? As far as I can tell, the only difference is that a TV has speakers. Oh, but wait, why do we also call the movey talkey pictures on the TV, also TV? So which is it? Is the TV the device or the content? If I say that I “don’t have TV any more”, but I still have a TV, and still watch television programs, but I’m not paying for cable… does that make sense? We can’t call the programs “cable” because you can get those same programs over the internet or over satellite.

What about a laptop? Those have screens. Movies are also played on screens. Unless you’re watching them at home, in which case you’re watching them on the TV. Or your monitor, if it’s on your computer. But isn’t a laptop a form of computer? Wait. My computer uses a TV also, so am I still watching it on TV? Depending on what operating system your computer uses, it might call it a “display”. In Star Trek, they sometimes call it a display. Or they use “display” as a verb. As in, “display it on the monitor”. Even though it’s just a giant screen.

TV is an abbreviation of television. Are they two different things now? Television is a combination of vision (because you watch the thing with your optic balloons) and… I’m going to go with… telepathy? Thus television makes sense for the name of the program. A movie is just a long television show. So why are the words “movie” and “television” so different?

We need to simplify this.

If you have a word like “previous”, the prefix (before the root word) is “pre”. As in before. So before the thing. It makes sense. I love how prefix has a prefix. That means the part of a book that takes place before the main story is called a “prelogue” right? Hahahahaha. Nope. It’s called a “prologue”. Because fuck you, that’s why. The part that takes place after the main story is called an “epilogue”. Ok. They both have “logue” in it. There’s a little bit of continuity there. The prefix “epi” means both before and after. It’s like the aloha of language. It needs to stop.

At my job, we have a different art gallery exhibit every few months. For a few days, they’ll install the art. Then after the exhibit, they’ll destall the art. If I install a program on my computer, then decide to remove it, do I destall it? Hahahaha. Nope. Are you even paying attention? I uninstall it. Unless I’m using a different operating system, in which case I remove it.

For fuck’s sake.

What about words that sound the same? Like “your/you’re” or “their/there/they’re”. I understand that “you’re” and “they’re” are contractions. They were introduced by poets for syllabic count, so I’ll accept them. “Your” is similar to “our”, both of which imply ownership. “Your” is directed at one person, “you”, while “our” is directed at multiple people, “us”. It can stay, even though “us” doesn’t make any sense compared to the rest of the relative words. “There” and “here” both imply location, so it can stay. How does “their” and “our” make any sense? They both imply ownership, but one is third person and one is first person. But the words are totally different.

It’s like language is purposefully screwing with us.

Let’s clean this mess up. It’s been fun while it’s lasted, but we are smart enough as a species to come up with a better system. We add words to the dictionary all the time. Meanings of words morph. New words are added to the lexicon. Other words are no longer used. Sometimes the word is sensible, like “selfie”. It’s a picture of yourself. That makes sense. Plus, most of the people who take selfies are 12 year old girls, so they can dot the “i” with hearts or whatever. Other words make no fucking sense, like “fleek”. Also, go kill yourself, fleek.

I guess we could switch to Lojban, but I’m guessing none of you have ever even heard of it.

EDIT: I think I’m going to add some examples as I think of them. I’ll forget eventually.
Update 1. Restroom. Do you really rest in that room? Stupid word. Also, “commode” is so much better than “toilet”. It’s kind of like “prophylactic” instead of “condom”. And anyone who calls the facilities a “john” should drown themselves in that commode.