Language and Social PositionAs I sat in my ever-so-comfortable seat in the theater to watch "Titanic" for the second time on the big screen, a rather foreign thought occurred to me: good use of the language. This film, based on the 1912 disaster, went to extremes in detail to make everything convey the late 19th and early 20th century. The language of the film was best written for the year 1912, as was the model of the ship itself. The film featured the language of both the American upper crust ("nobility") and the lower class of several nations of the world. Focusing on the educated, wealthy and upper class people, their language was so pure, concise and definitive. The best example I can cite from the film was a line from young Rose, when she was trying to get into her harsh, snobbish mother's head that there weren't enough boats for everyone on board, in reality less than half the passengers would get a place on a lifeboat. He tells his mother, “Not half enough!” In four words, Rose said what would have taken me at least ten words to say in our modern parlance, something like "There aren't enough [boats] for even half the people!" “Not half enough” is a phrase I understood easily, but I have never heard a phrase so phrased in my life (in contemporary conversations, dialogues, speeches, etc.). It reminds me more of the diction of past writings, which authors like Shakespeare or Benjamin Franklin might have used. Why isn't a phrase like "Not half enough" used in modern American English today? This sentence is clear, concise and not difficult to say. Robert Hall would probably praise such a phrase as a prime example of good use. It's... middle of paper... I would have thought "awesome" and "crazy, man" would make a comeback, huh? Language use should not be the criterion by which we judge each other. Language was created to communicate and shouldn't we communicate in the simplest and most efficient way? We should heed Robert Hall's advice and let rules of good usage based on the "most effective way of speaking" (handout) govern our use of language. However, in reality, it seems that William Tanner's thoughts creep into our opinion of good use and link it to social etiquette, thus creating judgments of social class and distinction based on the speech of the other. We, as listeners and speakers, must make a conscious decision to stop judging others based on the use of language and to start becoming followers of Hall (we will call ourselves Halloons) and to make our language clear, concise and efficient..