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<blockquote data-quote="Sepulchrave II" data-source="post: 7473275" data-attributes="member: 4303">Conciseness is certainly a dimension which can be improved in a language, but this fails to account for aesthetic considerations; given that a common use for language is to purposely evoke feelings (theater, literature etc.), this would seem to me an important component in how we judge &quot;improvement&quot;. And nuance is hard to achieve without adding more words; as the field of human experience grows (and our record of previous experience becomes more-and-more comprehensive), we add more-and-more words to describe the phenomena which we encounter.The more I think about it, the more I'm skeptical of the notion that [the English] language can be improved beyond a simple phonetic rationalization; it is best suited to the time and context in which it is used: it evolves to best reflect its own milieu. But this is silly:Cough&nbsp; Enough&nbsp; Through&nbsp; Thorough&nbsp; Chough&nbsp; Plough&nbsp; Slough&nbsp; Ought&nbsp; And there has to be room for improvement here. Thru and plow are a good start, but I rather think they were modified for brevity, rather than any kind of phonetic clarity.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sepulchrave II, post: 7473275, member: 4303"] Conciseness is certainly a dimension which can be improved in a language, but this fails to account for aesthetic considerations; given that a common use for language is to purposely evoke feelings (theater, literature etc.), this would seem to me an important component in how we judge "improvement". And nuance is hard to achieve without adding more words; as the field of human experience grows (and our record of previous experience becomes more-and-more comprehensive), we add more-and-more words to describe the phenomena which we encounter. The more I think about it, the more I'm skeptical of the notion that [the English] language [I]can[/I] be improved beyond a simple phonetic rationalization; it is best suited to the time and context in which it is used: it evolves to best reflect its own milieu. But this is silly: [I]Cough Enough Through Thorough Chough Plough Slough Ought[/I] And there has to be room for improvement here. [I]Thru[/I] and [I]plow[/I] are a good start, but I rather think they were modified for brevity, rather than any kind of phonetic clarity. [/QUOTE]

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