“Why do languages decay?"

If you're even an occasional reader of the work (ha) of Team Verb, you know our motto:

Language changes.
Deal with it.
Revel in it.

We've often linked to new issues of  SpecGram, once known as the Speculative Grammarian. But the latest issue includes a contribution that deftly slices away our reason for being. Or maybe jabs at it with a rusty blade.  I mean the "Ask Mr. Language Person" piece answering the question above. It begins:

Hwæt! Languages don’t decay, they change over... okay, I just can’t go on perpetuating this myth that languages don’t decay. They do. They decay because speakers are lazy. The prescriptivist language mavens are right. 

 Hwaet indeed. This may be the most closely argued piece of linguistics since Verner wrote on the voicing of Germanic fricatives, or at least since "Remarks on Nominalization".

We urge you to read the piece. Then come back to us. If we ever gain the courage to tilt at the change windmill again. Or do we change our motto to 'language decays' and go from there?

Yours,
Team Verb

Image from here.