Originally posted by dlh If that proposition [" an objective reality that transcends individual choices" weren't] true, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because we'd be unable to communicate.
Obviously not. Shakespeare would have laughed at you, he spelt his name seven ways, no objectively right answer there, just an arbitrary one.
You spell 'traveling' because Webster set about simplifying the existing 'travelling'. Who's objectively right according to your belief?
An Englishman from Somerset sounds nothing like a Scotsman from Orkney in conversation, and neither talk like the classic BBC newsreader.
Language adapts to trends, and because it isn't so codified is one reason it has become the new lingua franca, it's super flexible, as the old lingua franca became rigid (French newspapers could be fined at one point for using borrowed English terms instead of Academie approved ones).
The cost is complexity and lack of consistency, the bonus is it's very rich. The Polish author Joseph Conrad voted with his pen, choosing to write his poetry in French for the sound and his novels in English for all the synonyms/vocab with their shades of grey.