rs ago, suspect in polite discourse.

[Footnote 1: Though this is very loosely and inaccurately used.]

Outside the deliberate invention by scientists of terms for
the new relations they have discovered, more or less spontaneous
variation in the use of words and their unconscious
assimilation by large numbers with whose other language
habits they chance to fit, is the chief source of language
growth. One might almost say words are wrenched from
their original local setting, and given such a generalized
application that they are made available for an infinite complexity
of scientific and philosophical thought.

UNIFORMITIES IN LANGUAGE. Thus far we have discussed
changes in language from the psychological viewpoint, that is,
we have considered the human tendencies and habits which
bring about changes in the articulation and meaning, in the
sound and the sense, of words. It is evident from these
considerations that there can be no absolute uniformity in
spoken languages, not even in the languages of two persons
thrown much together. Within a country where the same
language is ostensibly spoken, there are nevertheless
differences in the language as spoken by different social strata, by
different localities. There are infinite subtle variations
between the articulation and the word uses of different
individuals. There are languages within languages, the dialects of
localities, the jargon of professional and trade groups, the
special pronunciations and special and overlapping vocabularies
of different social classes.

But while there are these many causes, both of individual
difference and of differing social environments, why languages
do not remain uniform, there are similar causes making for a
certain degree of uniformity within a language. There is one
very good reason why, to a certain extent, languages do attain
uniformity; they are socially acquired. The individual learns
to speak a language from those about him, and individuals
brought up within the same group will consequently learn to
speak, within limits, the same tongue; they will learn to
articulate through imitation, and, while no individual ever
precisely duplicates the sounds of others, he duplicates them
as far as possible. He learns, moreover, as has already been
pointed out, to attach given meanings to given words, not for
any reason of their peculiar appositeness or individual caprice,
but because he learns that others about him habitually attach