Algeo's Origins and Development of the English Language - Reflection - Part Five

The most important aspect of this chapter was the differences of the English language depending on culture and environment. I found it extremely interesting that English words differ in different environments. British people did not have a name for certain geographical landmarks that didn't appear in their everyday lives. Americans, however, became less cultured in British geography terms as they lived in America. People in America didn't need the word moor, for example, since they did not encounter it in their new homeland. As generations passed, no Americans used the word anymore. Different words that change depending on culture, however, work almost the same way. It's how slang terms evolve and become rooted in the language's vocabulary. Lift and elevator mean the same thing, but the names evolved differently depending on what each speaker of the language used to describe the machine that lifts or elevates a group of people.