I read recently that scientists studying the evolution of language have concluded that over time, languages become simpler, explaining perhaps why the works of Shakespeare can be a little confusing today.  Linguists also believe that originally human speech included not just the consonant and vowel sounds we are familiar with, but many other vocal sounds, including a variety of clicks, as the Bushmen of Africa still use.

One need only try to decipher a typical text message to realize that our written language is currently undergoing a dramatic simplification.  Whether or not this remains confined to cell phones has yet to be seen.  But I suspect it will spread.

But it isn’t just technology that is transforming our language.  Time, as the researchers have revealed, has always been doing this.  Yet until the advent of texting, it has done so slowly enough that we rarely notice.

A few years ago my mother gave me a book entitled Endangered Words by Simon Hertnon, which contains a number of words that aren’t used much anymore.  I’ve hardly encountered any of them before.  They include elozable, “amenable to flattery;”  perspicacious, “of acute mental vision or discernment;” schlimmbesserung, “a so-called improvement that makes things worse;” perendinate, ‘to defer until later;’ and agathism, “the doctrine that all things tend towards the ultimate good, as distinguished from optimism which holds that all things are now for the best.”  An agathistic person ‘believes things can be improved by taking action.’

This last definition calls to mind last week’s comments by the perspicacious editor of this newspaper, Jim Dickerson (who I hope is elozable), when he asked if we are ‘optimistic, pessimistic, or somewhere in between’ when it comes to the future of this area.  Specifically, he wondered if we’re optimistic enough to proceed with new housing and a new school.

I agree that whatever is decided will be a barometer of whether we as a community are optimistic and see it growing, pessimistic and see it declining, or agathistic – understanding that we face challenges but believing we have it within our power to make things better.

Nearly 30 years ago when I was trying to decide if I should start a recording studio, a friend observed that “while a positive attitude doesn’t guarantee success, a negative attitude does guarantee failure.”  In other words, unless I was optimistic about my prospects, I shouldn’t move forward because my pessimism would lead to bad decisions.  But he was realistic enough to know that optimism alone isn’t enough to ensure success – even with hard work, some endeavors fail.

I did move forward with music and continue to experience both failure and success.  Both have arisen from my agathism – my belief that if I work harder I can do better.  But my friend was right — I have never succeeded at anything I didn’t bother to attempt because I was too pessimistic about the prospects of success.  Who knows what might have happened in those instances if I’d been more positive? 

The stakes involved with expanding our housing and our school are high – no one wants an expensive schlimmbesserung!  But it’s important to consider more than just cost – we are, after all, setting our community’s course for the future.  And while tough decisions can lead us to being perendinate, we can’t afford to become velleitous (wanting things to be better without doing anything to bring about improvements).  After all, one need only text with a teenager to see what being velleitous is doing to our language.