The Rise of 'Awesome'

Central Argument: evolution also takes place in language.

When we think about evolution, we tend to picture something like above (forget about last stage of human evolution: machine). However, according to the definition of Wikipedia, evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolution applies in everything such as matter, technology, or even language. In The Economist, Robert Lane Greene argues that evolution also takes place in language. I also agree that language changes over a period of time as Greene's evidence and Sir Francis Bacon's essay show.

In Robert Lane Greene’s article “THE RICE OF AWESOME," Greene proves his argument by explaining how terrible and awesome words now differ from how it was before. When we think of the definition of terrible, most of us will say “shockingly bad” or “bad.” This actually is a new common meaning for terrible that we normally use in our daily lives. However, Greene states that terrible before “had a strong connection to “terror.” This tells us that terrible was not something that was simply used in our lives; it was a word used in horrible and fearful situations. Similar changes happened to the definition of awesome over a period of time. Greene states that “the first time ‘awesome’ appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary, in 1598, it was a description for someone feeling awe, rather than someone inspiring it.” Ironically, we now do not use awesome to describe a feeling of awe; in fact, we now use awesome to describe something great and nice. These two examples clearly prove that language does change.

Another example can be seen in Sir Francis Bacon’s essays. You must have heard Francis Bacon at least once in your high school life. He was an English lawyer, statesman, essayist, historian, intellectual reformer, philosopher, champion of modern science, and contemporary of Shakespeare. When we actually read his essays, it is very hard to understand his points. This is because the writing style has changed. This is an excerpt from his essay on Of Marriage and Single Life: “HE THAT hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.” Despite this phrase is composed of only two sentences, it is pain in the ass to read and actually understand such writing because the grammar and words are very difficult and complicated. If Francis Bacon was still living today, he will redefine this phrase into something like this: A man who has a family can be hindrance because it is an obstruction for his pursuit of success. The greatest work is wrought when one is single. He was a man who lived less than 400 years ago, but his style of writing does not exist anymore today. This also proves Greene’s central argument that language also evolve.

Without question, evolution is a universal principle that takes place in the world we live in, even in language. Robert Lane Greene’s examples of terrible and awesome and Sir Francis Bacon’s essay excerpt evidently ascertains that evolution is taking place in our language.