The Trouble With Modern English

A couple of days ago, I told a friend about a well read and intelligent lady I had met a few months ago. I remarked that we had since become intimate friends. My friend immediately jumped to the conclusion that the lady and I were an item or, to put it bluntly, that we were having sex. When I challenged this outrageous assumption, her defense was that the phrase "intimate friends" implied just what she had said.

This got me thinking about how "modern" English has irrevocably altered – even sexed up – the meaning of erstwhile innocent words and phrases. I have come across the phrase "intimate friends" in several works by Dickens, Bronte and Austen, for example – sometimes relating to relationships between persons of the same sex –and I am pretty sure the authors did not mean to imply a sexual liaison. So why has the meaning been twisted? If we are the modern, liberal society we purport to be, why do we feel the need to disguise overt physical attraction in ambiguous terms? Why not just use the s-word to say what we mean?

Another word I have a problem with is "gay". Up to around 50 years ago, gay meant happy or joyous. Romantic literature is sprinkled with descriptions of young couples comporting themselves with "gay abandon." The 1890s were popularly referred to as the Gay Nineties. Now, that word has been usurped to mean homosexual. I am not implying that homosexuals are inherently unhappy, but there is no logical connection between that sexual orientation and a word for happiness. So who gave homosexuals the right to take over that innocent and joyful adjective; and transform it into a noun with a radically different interpretation? To the modern generation, homosexual is probably the only meaning of gay they are aware of. Does that mean that whenever they come across that word in classical literature – or any book written before 1960 – they will infer a meaning the author never intended?

My other grouse with modern English is the facile use of hyperbole. Words like "awesome", "incredible" and "greatest" are bandied about with casual nonchalance – especially among teenagers and the tabloids. Cindy Lou’s prom dress is awesome and her new boyfriend looks incredible. My question is: when superlatives are downgraded with increasing carelessness, what do you use in a situation that genuinely merits one?

As for me, I’m off to a party where I fully intend to have a gay time with a few intimate friends. As a special treat, my host has informed me that he will allow me to handle his awesome first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost.