Libraries defend the f8th

This is a good week for Mrs. Language Person, as she is reminded she is not alone during National Library Week. Ah, libraries - those defenders of literary faith, those life-preservers of language. Librarians silently, dutifully and lovingly struggle to keep language and imagination afloat in this stormy sea of deliberate ignorance and apathy.

Struggle mightily they do, silently peddling their book-ended secrets, historical and fantastical. Stories to dazzle the mind's eye while expanding perspectives, true tales that put fear in the heart to entertain and enlighten. Far more excitement than faux "reality" TV. Shudder.

Do I have your attention, dear Reader? How long since you stepped foot in a library and wrested one of these precious books from its dusty shelf? If you indeed have a library card, does your child, your grandchild or coworker? Do you read by example? Upon each trip to her Hayden library, your MLP laments; the computer terminals full of youth, yet the stacks are relatively empty, but for us old fogeys.

How much they are missing. How one's world widens with each book, each story entertains while it strengthens language, teaches grammar. Teaches, you say? Indeed. The more one reads (well-written books by reputable publishers, although even they fall slack now), the better we know our own language, simply by example. Impressions stick.

We become accustomed to the level of what we read or experience, and before we know it, we emulate. Monkey see, monkey do. If all we consume is junk, well... No wonder we say "prolly" instead of "probably." No wonder even though more attend college than did 100 years ago, few speak or write as well as their ancestors. Why do we allow more education to mean less?

"But language is an evolving thing," argues Mr. MLP, each time your MLP insists "group" and "family" are not singular, by definition including more than one, and so should follow the English way, coupled with "are" rather than "is." Those Brits cling more tightly to logic and language tradition, as MLP recently witnessed to her great relief.

Yes, of course Mr. MLP is correct; language evolves. But should it erode? What use is it when one must constantly unlearn to keep up, when there is no proper spelling or meaning with which we may communicate clearly with one another?

Evolution invites new words and ideas: jeans, Freudian slip, jazz. Evolution may even allow made-up words to convey a feeling, such as these your MLP encountered in England: knackered (exhausted), cheeky (flippant, rude), sorted (fixed, addressed). OK; maybe that last one is simply literal.

Yet evolution neither accounts for ignorance nor excuses laziness. An apostrophe stands for a possessive or a missing letter, not for a plural; one cannot buy carrot's. Doughnut became donut for no reason other than laziness and repeated misuse. Tonight, it seems, is following suit.

Your MLP laments. Libraries, keep your valiant struggle brave and true. Itza gr8 fite.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at sholehjo@hotmail.com.