[RickSp]

I was wondering if it was merely British diction. Declination can be a synonym for decline, so the title is fine if a tad unusual. Personally I preferred reading the post title as "The Angular Distance from the Equator of the English Language," a slightly more common meaning of declination. Gives the thread an interesting geo-political spin, so to speak.

I don't think the language is in decline, merely changing, always changing. English is such a wonderful whore of a language. I heard a comment the other day where one scholar said that a colleague had commented that English has no word for schadenfreude. He replied, "Of course it does - Schadenfreude." English acquires what it wants and sheds what it no longer needs.