They Used to Be Called Pompons

Blue Tissue Flower Pom-Poms from Martha Stewart Crafts

I don't know about you, but I'm fascinated by the evolution of language. I mean at what point did we stop speaking Middle English and exchange it for words like postsantum depression in the Urban Dictionary? Hilarious I might add.

I mean, I had to memorize the General Prologue from the Canterbury Tales  by Geoffery Chaucer and recite it in front of my AP English class when I was a senior in high school. In fact, I can still remember the first two lines (OK, I had to look up the spellings):

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote We read as many "tales" as we could take, I'm sure, and all in this ancient rhyme. On to the language of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, even Mark Twain, and we could barely figure out what everyone was talking about  at any given time. So today, when I had to write the word "pompon" in a blog post I was writing for work, I said to myself No one in their right mind calls them pompons anymore. What kind of a git will I be if I spell it correctly? Then I remembered that we had even changed the antiquated pompon to pom-pom in the Paper Crafts style guide recently. As it so happens, paper crafters use a lot of bitty pom-poms in their projects, so this has been a troublesome issue when writing supply lists and instructions for the magazine. So I thought, OK, if Paper Crafts  can say pom-pom, and even the venerable Martha Stewart is using pom-pom, then surely I can too? I know, right? But it made me wonder--where am I getting the sense that pompon is outdated and pom-pom is its more contemporary independent liberal sister? In other words, how does language change and why? And who gets to decide what changes are OK? As in, why did it used to be one pair for the singular, and two pairs for the plural and now it's just peachy keeno fine to say two pair? It's even listed in the dictionary as correct. It's the second option, but it's correct. Drives me batty, I tell ya. Or when did that rule about never ending a sentence with a prepostion get tossed out? I can't stand to end sentences with a preposition. I'm still writing sentences like this: I am amazed at the state in which we have found ourselves. No way I could ever say I am amazed at the state we have found ourselves in. Yuck! I get heebie jeebies all over my body. And yet, when I write or talk that way, I feel and sound so formal. So git-ish. I could go on and on, and I'm sure at various points I will. But really the amazing thing is the debate we can have over one little letter variation (plus a hyphen) in a word. Pompon. Seriously?

Comments

[Lori Roop]

Hee....too funny! I'm glad I don't know much about it all. As they say....ignorance is bliss!

[Debbie Raymond]

I'm laughing right now and feel your pain. I am frustrated with another preposition problem - the lack of knowledge about how to capitalize titles - especially when there are words like to, for, with, etc. in the title - and also articles like a and the. Writing titles incorrectly is so common that when I do it right at work, it seems wrong. The explosion of writing on the internet isn't helping. Where's E.B. White when we need him?!

[Kathryn]

Cath--

1) "In other words, how does language change and why?" The answer is: poets. If you're in for a challenge of a read coming to us from the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Owen Barfield), you should dive into "Poetic Diction" by Barfield. Being a poet yourself I am sure you will understand. It is a truly definitive work, though not for inexperienced writers or the faint at heart... It exposes the poet's immense responsibility to society and the incredible role he/she plays in shaping language, that celestial gift.

2)On ending a sentence with a preposition: I am sure you have heard the story of Winston Churchill's response, "Madam, such pedantry I shall not up with put!"... This never ceases to make me chuckle a little, although I also try not to do too much further damage to the English language... it's been battered up enough already. And possibly even fried. ;)

Have a great day,
--Kathryn