I've got a BA in English...

...and I often find myself thinking about language. The ways we use it. The ways we don't. I often think about how our word choice reflects our world view, and how each person, coming from a different place, articulates how they view things or how they do things or whatever. For example, I've recently started going to Bible study at the church I've been going to. (I'm not going to rant about religion. Promise.) We were looking at a passage from Philippians last night, and had several different translations of the Bible. We noticed that in each translation, the word choices that each version had, was significantly different, whether through implication or different words. One of the passages said something like, "All words are inspired by God". I do not recall how the other was phrased, but it implied that all passages in the Bible might not be inspired by the deity.

This in turn led me to start thinking, as well, about how languages generally change over time. Look at Chaucer or Shakespeare for example. Really, how many people could read and understand Chaucer without a "modern translation" next to it? Even words that look similar to words used today might have had a completely different context "back in the day."

Anyway, back to the "the ways we do(n't) use words" bit. Even within the United States, do words have a different meaning. If I say, in Montana, "Hey, where's the bubbler?" I often get strange looks. In some circles, it might mean, "Where's the bong?". Most of the time, I try to explain that a "bubbler" is something one drinks from, and a "water fountain" is something at a park, usually made of stone, that spits out water and looks pretty in the summer time. People here also use the word, "sack" to mean "bag", like in the grocery store. "Do you need a sack?" When I initially heard this, my first thoughts were, "No, I don't want to be punched in the stomach," or "I haven't even started working yet. Who are you to fire me?"

Then I try to consider the "people" aspect of language. Here's where my sociology major pops it's head out. While trying to remember that people use different words based on their life experiences or the region they were brought up in, I'm often curious about how certain groups of people (or individuals, I suppose) develop the language patterns they use.

These are the things I find myself thinking about. Maybe I think too much. Maybe I'm just curious. Or, maybe, I've got too much time on my hands. Got any interesting insights? Let me know.