G’day there Don!
Good to see you challenging the lexicology once again!!
That list of verbs which you supplied does indeed highlight a certain laziness which has crept into the English language. They all have particular contexts in which they are most suitable. You compose music, I build a shed, someone else arranges flowers, etc, etc. In relation to God, we say He Created everything, In saying that we most times leave off as a given the fact that he Created everything from nothing and we simply refer to Him as the Creator, with a capital C.
However, is it not the case that when we humans synthesise something from available resources, say, a motor car from steel, ceramics and plastics, all of which we have manufactured, that we have created something and something new? Something brand new that did not and could not have existed otherwise? It would be somewhat cumbersome, and probably descriptively vague to have to go around saying “I synthesised a new thing, which is a form of transport which never existed before and could not have if I hadn’t the idea to use a plethora of new technologies to form new materials from which this new form of transport is manufactured”. To say “I created…” is much more gramatically economic, even if a little less precise. One might ascribe to man a certain degree of arrogance to suggest that the same word which denotes the Creator of all things is used to describe a synthesis, by humans, of existing materials to form something new. However I think God would not frown on the creativity of his created beings! He might actually be pleased that they are using their God given intelligence creatively!
Some one here gave the Latin root of the word create. I too looked it up and found an interesting description of the use and development of the word ‘Create’. It stems from the latin word
creatus, which means
"to do, to make". It can be further traced back to the Greek word
kreinein, which means
"to fulfill". The concept of 'creator and ‘create’ appeared around 14,000 years ago to explain the world. However, Latin, Greek and English are not that old and use of the term is recorded in English for the first time in only the 13th century. Words such as ‘creativity’ and ‘creative’ appeared much later. Their useage can be tracked alongside the “creation” of technology. So, was mankind starting to feel a little arrogance because of his developing creativiness, or was he simply searching for greater linguistic descriptiveness when he began to develop the useage of the word “create”. The word has gone from being used as an upper case description of the Creator, to the lower case adjectival usage of creative and further to a lower case description of the creativity of mankind. Nothing sacriligious there. Just an intellectual exercise in describing mankinds development over time. As for the fall off in the use of the adjectives which you list, well, that laziness probably pertains to many words in the English language. Look at the word “incredible”. It has virtually nothing to do with its original and correct meaning. Gee, people even find books incredible in this day and age! And look at the word ‘Cool’. It certainly has little to do with temperatures any more!!
I say let the language develop and change and give greater expression to the range and scope of human activities. If, indeed, that is what the changing language is doing. However, at the same time I say rail against the intellectual laziness that does cause either a misuse of words, or a fall off in their use, which really is nothing more than a regression into vagueness. As for not allowing others to use the word ‘Create’, well, isn’t that akin to the political correctness which is causing even more vagueness and ambiguity to creep into the English language?
There, I feel better now.
I have -]created crafted built constructed/-] composed ( or is it contrived?) a post!!
