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Matthew Arms

Professor Rebecca Morean

English 1101-115

30 March 2018

Language Arts Has Become Language Lost

A love letter during the Civil War is to a pristine rose, as a Facebook post is to a

perennial broadleaf weed. Something tragic happened to the English language during the past

sixty years and without a concrete answer as to why, people like me are left scratching their

heads wondering, “Did something in the water give The United States of America a learning

disability?”

There are several variables that have changed since the 1950’s that coincide with the

degradation of the English language, and depending on who you speak to, American society as a

whole. Although the inception and exponential growth of the internet has driven several more

nails into the coffin that has become our language, it was simply the next logical step from the

first stage of the disease: television.

Although the advent of television occurred during the end of the 1920’s, it wasn’t until

three decades later the technology was finally affordable and easily accessible to anyone with a

steady income. As the segment of the population with access to television grew, so did the

programming to support it. As a result, more and more time was spent by American families

vegetating in front of a box that, outside of news broadcasts, provided only mindless

entertainment. Superimposed on this was a new option parents now had: using television as a

free, built-in babysitter. Because of this, many children spent time absorbing vocabulary and

speaking styles that were meant to be appreciated strictly for their comedic value, not as a literal
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depiction of the English language as a whole. These children grew up and had their own children

who in turn have created more children. Now we sit three generations deep, and all the while, the

the largest driving factor that educates our children in terms of content and language has become

hopelessly distorted and detached from reality beyond recognition.

This has been happening long enough now that the question has become: “Has society

gradually, subconsciously conformed to the magic box, or has the magic box redefined our

society?” It’s a trick question. The answer is, they have undeniably met in the middle.