[31] much richer in their expressive power than modern languages--that the deteriorization of language^a takes place which is often counterbalanced by a development of new languages out of the slang section of the deteriorized language. Now this is partly the case with English, and I think the slang-section is developed much stronger in this country than in England and the other English-using languages. And it is probably possible that out of this encounter with reality, which is going on in the American popular mind, a new primitivism of language will arise in which much of the deteriorization of the official language has been overcome. The symptoms of the deteriorization of a language, the loss of the original encounter with reality, is, for instance (one of them) the abbreviations. And here today we are in a period of utter deterioration. We replace full words by abbreviation, combined by letters without meaning. We do not say "General Motors" (in which there is still something of the original idea of moving powers, universally, combined in this enterprise), but we say "G.M.", which doesn't mean anything. And we do not say "Union Theological Seminary" (although I have never followed this usage), but we say "U.T.S.", and that means all the meanings connected with these words: that it is a "sem"inary, a place where "seeds" are thrown into the spiritual earth; that it is "theological"; that it is the "union" of all denominations (which means very much, symbolically)--is gone. "U.T.S." is nothing! And even a word like "United Nations"... one says "U.N." and the meaning is gone! This is one of the symptoms of the deteriorization of language, for a very special reason: language^b has lost its expressive power, in these cases, and has been used simply as a sign, in social relations, for communicative powers in a technical society, where nothing more than these abbreviations is needed. But when we speak of spiritual deteriorization, we should not forget that this is one of the symptoms. There is another, which took place much earlier. In early languages, e.g., genuine [i.e., classical--ed.] Greek, the grammatical inflections are incredibly rich--to the distress of all students who must learn these languages! But slowly, many of these inflections disappear, and a great poverty takes place with respect to them, but this stage of poverty is sufficient to fulfill the communicative function of language^c in a technical society. Tenses, optatives, conjunctions, and all this, are not needed any more.