Rescued from the Dustbin of Linguistics

Ace has an interesting post musing on how internet culture has not only created new words (for example, “fail” and “win” as nouns), but also revived archaic words into active use. “Daresay” is his example of the latter, and he’s struggling to think of others. He suspects cross-pollination from British writers, reviving words that are archaic in American English but merely formal or staid in British English.

“Beclown” is my favorite word that blogging has revived, and one that cannot be attributed directly to improved communication across the pond. Instead, I’d attribute this to blogging revitalizing the usefulness of the word. Blogging gives a great many people an opportunity to beclown ourselves, as well as giving others a platform from which to point out autobeclownings.

Overall, I’d attribute the revitalization of old words to the fact that internet communications in general and blogging in particular have handed a wide-reaching broadcast medium to nerds and geeks. The marked use of archaic words was already a well-established feature of geek culture long before the internet (e.g. “Defenestrate”), and the internet has merely given us a forum through which to spread this.