The language of luxury, the luxury of language

Abstract

As a common part of everyday speech, the meaning of the word ‘luxury’ has been eroded and devalued over time. Nonetheless, it continues to have impact as an element of luxury branding through its deployment across various media, due to its historical associations with wealth, exclusivity and status. Accordingly, the word ‘luxury’, has been employed/deployed both historically and in contemporary contexts, as part of an economic system, including its use in advertising campaigns, point of sale and in everyday parlance, to denote ideas of intrinsic value (whether existent or not). Meanwhile as this short article will propose, beyond these pragmatic applications, language itself might be thought of as a form of ‘luxury’; something with a worth that surpasses any functional need: something excess or surplus; something unnecessary, but desirable. This notion of luxury can be found in language as a medium, one which we often use indiscriminately, and without regard for its beauty, scarcity and true value. Contemplating the various affordances of language, and the economies of language, where ‘economy’ is not posed as a financial system, but as a way of thinking and acting within any system, allows us to see languages’ intrinsic worth. Via five separate thought experiments/examples, ranging from Oulipo-like games of linguistic restraint, through Fahrenheit 451, and finally to the ways in which technologies are rendering language as a luxury. In the end we will see how we might think of the luxury of language itself, as something which is far from excess or shallow, but possessing intrinsic value; returning us to the true meaning of the term ‘luxury’, which we have (arguably), forgotten.