More than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products.
More than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products.
And this is about the English word in the English use, with English rules, so let’s stick to those, shall we.
Milk is another word with another angle. The connotation is no longer, in everyday layman use, connected to “something you get out of a teet” and instead it is what children drink, you put in cereals or coffee, etc.
That’s the beauty about languages, they evolve with the needs of the populace that uses them.
We no longer live in an agrarian society, so when somebody now speaks of milk, you don’t think, “what did they milk it from”, you think “what are they going to put that thing in that they bought from a shop”.
Milk of Magnesia. Coconut milk. Dandelion milk. These are all descriptions of very long standing (100s of years).
I don’t think it means what you think it means.
In this context, no, language does not evolve. It adapts to the way it is being used.
I certainly would not like to reach a point where we must use doublespeak-eske language to communicate with certain people, but it feels like we are heading there.
Language does evolve. Here are a few examples of the word being used in this context:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-evolution-language/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387516707_The_Evolution_of_Human_Language_From_Ancient_Roots_to_Modern_Complexity
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10142271/
Oh ok. So the word evolve hasnt adapted to mean “slowly changes over time due to small changes” in day to day speak, along with many other meanings. See pokemon, video game bosses etc. etc.
We already doublespeak in many situations. For example “theory” in layman’s terms is used like “hypothesis” instead of it’s true meaning. Where as it’s true meaning is pretty much only used in scientific terminology.
Anyway I’m sure 100% of people understood exactly what I meant.
You did not use the word incorrectly.
Thank you