Writing, then and now

Dumbing down of language: compare Oliver Cowdery's Letter VII to modern writing.

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For most of history, language was trained through books, sermons, letters, and long conversation. People grew up hearing scripture, poetry, speeches, and literature. Their vocabulary expanded because their mental diet demanded it. Now language is trained by algorithms that reward speed and reaction. Short posts have replaced letters. Memes have replaced arguments. People will point to your origin rather than debate your point. Nor can they tolerate a dissenting view. All of it is done on purpose because our leaders want followers and loyalists not those who would ask or challenge. So the language shrinks. And when language shrinks, something deeper shrinks with it. Because a civilization can only think as clearly as the words it still remembers how to use.

One thing you notice when you read pretty much anything written more than 100 years ago is just how impoverished and bland and limited our language has become. People spoke and wrote in a kind of effortlessly rich and descriptive way that almost no one does today. On this site a lot of people write almost exclusively in cliches and internet lingo. A lot of people speak like that too. The language contracts, our conversational vocabulary shrinks more and more over time. And the more limited we become in our language, the more limited we are in our thinking.

It’s not just the classic authors. I mean read any random letter from any random Civil War soldier writing to his mother or wife back home. Even if the spelling was bad, the writing is just kind of evocative and interesting in a way that nobody communicates today. I read one in a book that was like “As I write this I’m sitting on a narrow dusty road in the cool shade of a magnolia tree which blossoms in vibrant hues of pink and white,” or something along those lines. Paraphrasing but the point is that you read it and immediately know it must have been written 150 years ago because nobody would casually write in such a descriptive way today. We don’t paint pictures with words anymore. And I find that really sad.

https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/2028938020414484504?s=20

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Excerpt from Letter VII:

You have, no doubt, as well as myself, frequently heard those who do not pretend to an “experimental” belief in the Lord Jesus, say, with those who do, that, (to use a familiar phrase,) “any tune can be played upon the bible:”—What is here meant to be conveyed, I suppose, is, that proof can be adduced from that volume, to support as many different systems as men please to choose: one saying this is the way, and the other, this is the way, while the third says, that it is all false, and that he can “play this tune upon it.” If this is so, alas for our condition: admit this to be the case, and either wicked and designing men have taken from it those plain and easy items, or it never came from Deity, if that Being is perfect and consistent in his ways.

But although I am ready to admit that men, in previous generations, have, with polluted hands and corrupt hearts, taken from the sacred oracles many precious items which were plain of comprehension, for the main purpose of building themselves up in the trifling things of this world, yet, when it is carefully examined, a straight forward consistency will be found, sufficient to check the vicious heart of man and teach him to revere a word so precious, handed down to us from our fathers, teaching us that by faith we can approach the same benevolent Being, and receive for ourselves a sure word of prophecy, which will serve as a light in a dark place, to lead to those   things within the vail, where peace, righteousness and harmony, in one uninterrupted round, feast the inhabitants of those blissful regions in endless day.

Scarce can the reflecting mind be brought to contemplate these scenes, without asking, for whom are they held in reserve, and by whom are they to be enjoyed? Have we an interest there? Do our fathers, who have waded through affliction and adversity, who have been cast out from the society of this world, whose tears have, times without number, watered their furrowed face, while mourning over the corruption of their fellowmen, an inheritance in those mansions? If so, can they without us be made perfect? Will their joy be full till we rest with them? And is their efficacy and virtue sufficient, in the blood of a Savior, who groaned upon Calvary’s summit, to expiate our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness? I trust, that as individuals acquainted with the gospel, through repentance, baptism and keeping the commandments of that same Lord, we shall eventually, be brought to partake in the fulness of that which we now only participate—the full enjoyment of the presence of our Lord. Happy indeed, will be that hour to all the saints, and above all to be desired, (for it never ends) when men will again mingle praise with those who do always behold the face of our Father who is in heaven.

(Messenger and Advocate I.10:155 ¶6–156 ¶2)

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/84