A friend of mine is an ex-priest who is still a devout Catholic. I recently heard him give a talk about Gary Wills’ remarkable book Why Priests? A Failed Tradition.

Wills assembled a wealth of historical information to argue that Christianity was never intended to have a separate class of ordained clergy. But in postmodern fashion, the book sent a very different message to my friend (and many other religious-minded readers). What hit him – hard – was the discovery that some apparently timeless principles of the Catholic Church have a far less solid foundation than he used to think. I remember my friend shaking his head and saying, “They didn’t tell us any of this in the seminary.”

You probably already know that I’m not going to talk about religion today – so what’s my point? Here it is: Wills’ book is part of a colossal shift in thought that affects all of us – and it includes language. But before I get there, let me give you a non-religious example of this “shift in thought.”

Not long ago I watched a British TV documentary about the extraordinary range of wildlife that lives in the gardens behind Buckingham Palace. (Regular readers: Are you surprised that I’ve been to Buckingham Palace and seen those gardens? No, of course not.)

It was a charming TV show, but I detected an underlying message – a commercial, almost. The United Kingdom no longer believes in the inevitability of their royal family. They know that it’s the British public – not God or her blue-blooded lineage – who keep the Queen on her throne. For that reason, the royal family has undertaken a quiet public relations campaign to argue for its continued relevance.

Of course nobody is arguing that language is irrelevant, so what point am I trying to make? Here it is: Many of us grew up believing that the principles of correct language usage – like religion, like the divine right of kings – were absolute truths, their origins lost in the mists of time. A beloved English teacher imparted those truths to us, and we feel a solemn obligation to keep that tradition alive.

So it comes as a shock to learn that many of our most revered writing practices arrived late on the scene. Some were decided by amateurs who had no business making pronouncements about language. Many were offhandedly invented by people who operated printing presses. When we hear about these things, we experience the same shock my priest friend did. What is left to believe in? Or (a wail I hear all the time) “There are no more rules!”

In a sense they’re right. That beloved English teacher back in eleventh grade didn’t make the rules. Neither did Strunk and White, or Henry Fowler, or John E. Warriner (author of the grammar book we all used in high school). We, the people who speak English, are the ones who ultimately decide what to discard and what to keep.

If you think I’m overstating my case, let me give you an example. There’s an adverb in English that’s a synonym for stingy. It’s a perfectly respectable word that’s derived from the Middle English nigon. (The word “niggling” is a relative.) No grammar book that I know of has ever tried to make a case against this word, and yet almost nobody uses it anymore. Why? Because it sounds a lot like a racial epithet.

Logical? No. Cowardly? Perhaps. But – for better or worse – that’s how changes find their way into our language. And that’s how princes and princesses find themselves holding salaried jobs (as Prince Andrew is doing) and managing with a couple of domestic workers instead of a huge staff (as Princess Anne is doing).

That’s how religions find themselves reaching out to people who no longer want to be told how to manage, say, their sex lives or their finances. (Did you know that the Catholic Church used to prohibit investors from earning interest on their wealth? When was the last time you heard a sermon about the evils of money-lending and usury?)

Are you feeling the ground shake beneath your feet? I am too – but I’m also sensing the immense power that you and I hold every time we pick up a pen to write or open our mouths to speak. Let’s take a moment to honor our wonderful language – and our role as shapers and deciders of its future.