The other day, I began pondering to myself, "What IS a word? It seems like it shouldn't be so hard to explain." - I guess I thought I was smarter than our Linguistics lecture and could solve what Wikipedia calls one of the current "unsolved problems in linguistics". While there are many different ways to analyze what makes a word a word, I wanted to verbalize my intuition for what a word was. So, I began to formulate a definition.
In my musings, I came across a simple definition in my head - "A word should contain one complete thought. Take the word 'it'. It means one object, one thing." To prove this example to myself, I made sure this ruled out combinations of words: "'It walks' wouldn't work because that handles multiple ideas - the idea that our 'it' is walking." I was feeling smug until I tested a few more words. "What about the word 'the'? What idea does THAT represent?"
I began to change my definition, "Perhaps it could be anything that is one complete thought OR aids in the expression of another singular thought (but only if the word does not express a complete thought itself)." Later looking back to section 4.1 of our Linguistics book, I realized I had succeeded in defining things that already existed - Content words and function words. After some comparison, my definition still clearly had one major flaw:
In my musings, I came across a simple definition in my head - "A word should contain one complete thought. Take the word 'it'. It means one object, one thing." To prove this example to myself, I made sure this ruled out combinations of words: "'It walks' wouldn't work because that handles multiple ideas - the idea that our 'it' is walking." I was feeling smug until I tested a few more words. "What about the word 'the'? What idea does THAT represent?"
I began to change my definition, "Perhaps it could be anything that is one complete thought OR aids in the expression of another singular thought (but only if the word does not express a complete thought itself)." Later looking back to section 4.1 of our Linguistics book, I realized I had succeeded in defining things that already existed - Content words and function words. After some comparison, my definition still clearly had one major flaw:
- What is one idea?
Spanish words easily have more than one idea. While a phrase like, "You walk", is two words in English, this idea can easily be put into one word in Spanish: "Caminas." (It's so easy that even Google Translate manages to come back with an accurate translation.) Obviously, my definition could use some work. In Linguistics, instead of one idea, they decided that the idea of one unit, a morpheme, was a better way to define what I was attempting to articulate.
Unfortunately, even after altering my definition yet again, I still found it to be incomplete. "My older sister has definitely said 'conversate' before... I refuse to accept that as a word. You don't 'conversate', you 'converse'!" I did a little research to see what the opinions on 'conversate'. Similar to 'irregardless', 'conversate' is listed as nonstandard by the Merriam Webster dictionary. (That being said, 'conversate' is underlined with a red squiggly line while 'irregardless' has remained unscathed).
"But... conversate isn't a word. What can I do? How can I stop it from being a word? What IS a word? ... what is nonstandard?"
non·stan·dard
adjective \-ˈstan-dərd\: not accepted or used by most of the educated speakers and writers of a language
adjective \-ˈstan-dərd\: not accepted or used by most of the educated speakers and writers of a language
This got me thinking: "What is educated? What about Ebonics or Hawaiian Pidgin? Do these [words?] belong in their own dictionary?" This was getting into dangerous territory. I was leaving the realm of linguistics and entering that of social issues and what it really means to speak correctly. I had been thinking myself above others because of their use of 'conversate', and I, for some reason, had felt I could be the purveyor of what it meant for a word to be a word.
Maybe the problem isn't with nonstandard words and what it means to be a word; it's how we conversate about them.
Maybe the problem isn't with nonstandard words and what it means to be a word; it's how we conversate about them.
It seems that the definition of a word or a language from a linguistics perspective differs greatly from the general definition. The general accepted definition seems to involve only standard words (no “irregardless” or “refudiate”) that are a single orthographical unit, i.e. no spaces. The definition of a word from a linguistic standpoint, from what I’ve gathered, is roughly a valid combination of morphemes that has a well-defined and distinct function in the language as a whole. For example, as you mentioned, “the” doesn’t express an easily articulated idea per se, but it has a distinct function as a definite article. It is similar with nonstandard words such as “irregardless”: they may not be widely accepted in the public as valid words but from a linguistic perspective, they are a valid combination of morphemes with a recognizable and definable function. In practical use, I agree more with the linguistic definition. No matter how long we debate over whether the validity of nonstandard words or the proper use of who and whom, all that truly matters in the use of language is whether what we say can be understood.
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