Why is English the most widely spoken, richly worded language in the world? One reason is an open door. According to the PBS series, The Story of English, our language has never stationed guard dogs at its gate. No equivalent of the French or Spanish academies has ever decided for us which words will or won’t enter our vocabulary.

Back when English-speaking people were being conquered by every greedy horde around, they were just as greedily plundering the languages of their invaders.

Meanwhile, nobody was keeping tabs or making rules. We created and innovated on the fly. Shakespeare taught us that nouns could be verbs, verbs could be nouns. Forget gender endings. We soaked up pages of irregular verbs, played havoc with pronunciation, and entertained a constant flow of colorful, exotic idioms. In short, English borrowed from the best of every language it has ever encountered. Creative cross-pollination at its best.

The result—over half-a-million everyday English words are now at our disposal. Plus just as many scientific and technical terms. The Germans have to get by with only 185-thousand, the French, a mere 100-thousand, including English contributions such as, le weekend.

With all this in mind, how should we deal with the constant and continuing invasion of new words pouring into our language? Certainly not with a border wall.

Anarchy—with arms that embrace diversity, welcome noise, celebrate random stimulation, and revel in pure fun and nonsense—can do as much for any creative effort as it has done for the English language.

See also:

• The Illusion of Orderly Progress by Barbara Norfleet
• Don’t Be Absurd

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