In his interesting article ‘The Front Lines of the Language Wars’, Jeff Deist discusses the frictions between top-down and bottom-up language use: ‘We can analogize attempts to impose preferred language with interventionist central planning in a “marketplace,” while bottom-up evolution involves linguistic entrepreneurs acting in a laissez-faire system.’

The top-down use of language con be deployed as an instrument to dominate. Deist discusses four key concepts to understand the front lines between natural evolution and top-down imposition:
1 Words are intentionally stripped of all meaning by overuse and abuse.
2 Words are coded and embedded with meaning beyond their simple agreed-upon definitions.
3 The newly imposed words contain their own admonitions and exhortations.
4 the newly imposed lexicon is not intended to advance communication and understanding but rather to browbeat and demoralize.

You can read this fascinating article in its entirety here: https://mises.org/wire/front-lines-language-wars

Picture Richard Eisenmenger via Pixabay