The incredible shrinking English vocabulary: Evolutionary biologist predicts that some of the words you used today are going extinct

[Scot LaFaive]

Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see the importance in his statement since
we already know that languages change, and with them, their words. I didn't
read his study, so perhaps I'm missing a bigger point.

Scot



On 2/26/09, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject:      The incredible shrinking English vocabulary: Evolutionary
>              biologist predicts that some of the words you used today are
>              going extinct
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> The incredible shrinking English vocabulary: Evolutionary biologist =20
> predicts that some of the words you used today are going extinct
>
> English, perhaps the biggest, most influential world language ever, is =20=
>
> showing some signs of coming apart at the seams, according to =20
> evolutionary biologists at Reading University, who are predicting that =20=
>
> a number of the English words you probably used today, common ones =20
> like dirty, bad, and turn, may go extinct over the next 700 =96 800 =20
> years. . . .
>
> Finsd out more about this odd prediction. Read the whole post on the =20
> Web of Language.
>
> ____________________
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org