Language, honor, virtue and manners

Four things I believe that our society has lost over the years.

I could write a post about each of these four things, and maybe I will, but today I am thinking about language.

Last night, we watched A Christmas Carol, the version made in 1984. The special effects were laughable, but I couldn't get over the language used. (The movie got me thinking about the language, and then each of the other four things listed in my post followed language in my thoughts.) It is of course set in a time gone by, and the original story written by Dickenson, so one would expect the language to be "old fashioned". But that is precisely my point. I loved listening to the people in that movie speak, particularly Scrooge. The copious amount of beautiful vocabulary and the patterns of speach in that movie had me on the edge of my seat with enjoyment. I was happy to expose my children to such eloquent manners of expressing oneself.

Speaking during that era involved a lot of vocabulary that we have lost or forgotten about now.That vocabulary is wonderful and gorgeous and makes up a large part of why I love that era. But it isn't always the vocabulary that is distintive of that time. It is often the manner of phrasing and speaking that is different.
For example, a line from the movie last night spoken by Scrooge:

"Spirit, this is a fearful place. I wish to leave it."

Contrast that with what you might hear today:

" Hey, where the &*%$ am I? I wanna get out of here!"

Hmmm.

We shorten words, use slang, leave off letters altogether and even alter words in, I believe, and effort to be quicker in speach. I have often felt the frustration of not being able to properly express myself, that my existing vocabuly left much to be desired. Would that I could have at my disposal the language I heard in the movie last night. Expressing myself, I am sure, would not often be a problem.

I detest the language we use in modern day. I am guilty of using it, and sometimes when I listen to myself speak I notice how uneducated I sound. The language used by our society in modern times makes us, I believe, sound lazy, slothful, unintelligent and brash.

It is a pity that we have lost so much over the centuries.

Perhaps it is the language alone that keeps me coming back to those bygone eras, both in literature and film. Reading and watching (if the language is done well, such as in the movie we watched last night) things set in in the 1800's or early 1900's is always enjoyable to me. I have all of Jane Austen's works, and they are some of my favorites. I do love poetry, (if I can understand it; I have to comprehend what I am reading or I get bored) and the works of Shakespeare. (Although, Shakespeare borders on uncomprehendable sometimes, his era is too long past!) Any novel set in those times that gets the language right I devour. And I notice that while I am reading those things, I tend to think in and even sometimes borrow elements of their manner of speaking, both in syntax and vocabulary.

I encourage you to watch the version of A Christmas Carol we watched last night. Listen to the way that the characters speak, especially Scrooge. Compare that to how we speak today. And see if you don't agree with me. That we have lost something precious.