When I was a kid, one of the books I read and re-read was The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance. The plot described the social impact of sudden changes to the language on the quiet agrarian world of Pao — essentially, a group of genius consultants were hired who developed a new set of languages for specific purposes: soldiers would speak a harsh aggressive language, scientists would speak a “smart” one, traders and merchants would speak a complex language with lots of ways to express social status and insults. (Essentially it was based on the idea of “Linguistic relativity”, which my linguist friend tells me is somewhat questionable at best.)
Anyway, one of the more interesting tidbits in the book was the culture of the savants of the “Breakness Institute”, who provided the consultants that suggested the language changes as part of deeper schemes of their own. The Institute was more or less a collection of mad scientists; as a member of the Institute grew in age, knowledge and personal influence, eventually they would reach a point where their madness could no longer be ignored (or tolerated) – at which point his peers would get rid of him. This process was referred to as “going emeritus”.
I will never ever be able to hear the news that “Prof. So-and-so has gone emeritus” without thinking of this.
