16 June 2018 - languages

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Why are there so many languages? Your action in English may have later results. In bureaucratese it has flow-on effects, in scholarese distal consequences, and in military-speak things get tore up from the floor up, because in the military all situations are bad. You thought language was for communicating, but that’s a minor secondary function. The main purpose is to keep the outgroup in their place.

the Daily Whale || copyright 2018, 2024 Jay J.P. Scott <jay@satirist.org>