The English Language Is In a Bad Way

Note to Self: add Ian Robinson's Untied Kingdom to Self's summer reading list. Self likes what he learned in B.R. Myers's recent review in The Atlantic. According to Myers, Robinson writes that the U.K. "has 'lost its mind, a state that prevents it from taking anything seriously.'" Robinson associates this state with what Myers calls "the spread of careless language" debasing our culture and politics. Robinson, who has harshly criticized recent translations of the Bible, associates the decline of language with the dire state of religion in England. But even Myers, who wishes that "Robinson had made a little less of his faith in this book," concludes that "when it warns against slovenly language, the voice of faith sounds to this heathen ear a lot like the voice of reason." Self, this is remarkable -- faith and reason NEVER agree!