The introduction of new words, or of new meanings, in order to put an end to a linguistic system`s deficiency, or simply, to extend its vocabular and semantical range, can take place in the medium of the spoken or in that of the written language. It is therefore important to know whether one of both mediums is perhaps the primary one. We should not forget that some linguists have insisted that the spoken language is of prime significance and other linguists that the written language is (particularly in questions of orthography). It seems, however, that the generalized question whether the spoken or the written language is of prime significance is itself already inaptly formulated. Yet what we can be sure about is that at least the impact of written language has become enormous since the invention of printing (about five-and-a-half centuries before the manuscript of this Model was word-processed in a computer). It is in the written language that important, 'normal' distinctions in present-day 'natural' languages were once artificially introduced or reintroduced. And when it is said that 'new usage can supplant the old with comparative ease' and that 'it is encouraging that there is one barrier which can be scaled with relative ease', this probably applies in the first place to the medium of the written language, if only because one can take more time when writing than when speaking. Later on the changes in, and additions to, the written language are bound to produce parallel new words and meanings in the spoken language, at least among those people between whom the exchange of thoughts and feelings takes place.

Even if in 'the partnership of language and (nonlinguistic) cultural norms, language is by nature the autocratic factor' --as has been remarked-- it does not follow that it is not people (or male and female human beings) who maintain and create the kind of language we are dealing with here. Supplanting particular linguistic conventions with a new usage may be a question of the writer`s or speaker`s ideology, but rejecting or ignoring such usage is not less a question of ideology. Conventions, even 'traditional' ones, are prerequisite for language, but there are other conventions, or decrees, which are prerequisite for the viability and expressivity of a new attitude, of new normative convictions.

Let no-one tremble with the thought of a limited number of his, of his or her, nay, of `er, linguistic conventions or decrees being discredited. It is not the right attitude when the linguistic rules concerned did serve, do serve or will continue to serve irrelevantist or other objectionable purposes. Besides, it does not help, for the old man whose tongue is traditional language must needs pass away eventually anyhow. This is as certain as the fate of needs .