How language grows (cfr. realism)

The growth of language follows the growth of knowledge and theexpansion of human activities. It is a vast, anonymous process, with manyvariations (in the optional area), many changes, false starts and short-livedattempts. Yet certain basic principles can be observed, demonstrating, notthe arbitrary character, but the objectivity of that process. … [A] wordsurvives and gains general usage only when and if it designates an actualcategory …. Many slang terms are coined every year, by one group oranother; some of them become fashionable, enjoy a brief, artificialpopularity of random mouthing … and vanish, like the stale debris ofsome noisy party. But a few slang expressions survive and become part offormal language – the apt, incisive ones that designate some aspect ofreality for which no formal term had previously existed …


Ayn Rand. 1997. Journals of Ayn Rand. Ed. David Harriman. New York: Penguin. pp. 691-2.