I've been following the posts about dumbing down our language at The Common Room and Dewey's Treehouse. I just read yesterday . . . well, no, let me see if I can find it. I followed a link to a poster's blog from another forum, which had a link to some Tips for Christian Bloggers. One of the tips was:

"5. Use common words. The web is indexed by strands of words and phrases (not by pictures or songs or cool graphics). Effectively reaching your potential audience means using these common words. When you write theologically, make sure you are using the terms most frequently used for your subject. Use creative words but never forget the most common ones, too. Get familiar with the common vernacular."

Okay, in that case, it's about using the most common phrases so that your blog posts come up when people do google searches. But I'm also familiar with the concept of using only small words and short sentences when discussing religion so that anyone can understand what you're saying. After all, it's salvation being discussed and nobody should be excluded because they don't have an expensive college degree.

Which makes me wonder, throughout history, it's often been Christians leading a lot of the trends and philosophical thinking. Now it's secular people desiring to dumb down the masses, and Christians are following that trend, falling right into it, playing along and exascerbating the problem in the name of the gospel. What's a Christian to do? Use big words and alienate the masses? How can we be the kind of force that Christians used to be who elevated the masses and educated them? I don't know, and, anyway, I'm getting off my purpose, which was to share this dialog.

The Headmistress started with these two posts about Big Words and Dick and Jane, and continued with a post about Language Wars. MamaSquirrel added her own post, The Headmistress posted another entry, and MamaSquirrel added yet one more.

It makes very interesting reading.

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