The “language is changing and I don’t like it” brigade are in full denial that language has always changed. The great beauty of English is how ravenously adaptive it is and always has been
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i know this to be true and yet i am still bugged by those recent changes (recent as in in the last 30 years) that.... bug me. Impact as a verb. i hate it. It becomes normal and i have no say in the matter and people get to mean what they mean to mean, but i still hate it.
There's probably a difference between 'language change' and just misuse of words due complete ignorance. Also even if something (anything) changes it doesn't mean it is better or more useful or more descriptive. It just means it changed. Some people seem to think change means positive selection.
I still scream loudly when I must endure a big pharma ad repeating “less nasal polyps” a dozen times in 30 seconds. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The great beauty, and also the great pain in the ass trying to learn a hundred different ways the language works based on a dozen different loaning languages 😅
...I should really make a point to react with sadness/horror when my "that's not ~proper english~!!!" fam use the words 'terrific' or 'awesome'.
"You said it was terrific! I'm so sorry you had such a horrifying experience at that restaurant!!"
😂
Me (Scottish) and my Alaskan friend tried to explain to his Nicaraguan linguist wife that the first time we learned how to formally construct a sentence was when we learned French/Spanish as teenagers.
She was incensed! She couldn't accept that English runs on feels for most native speakers.
The Norman Invasion was the best thing to happen to the English language. It removed the type of sanctity that L'Academie Française tries to enforce. One can't seriously argue that it's anything but a mongrel.
I am not a fan of the snooty Académie and similar bodies (Office québécois de la langue française), but you must admit that they serve a function in keeping the language unified rather than splitting into several dialects that would eventually get lost to the sea of English dominance around them
I kinda used to be one of those people, then I took a linguistics class. There is so much diversity within a single language and no objective rules to find the "right" way to say something.
Language coevolves with us, just like everything else in the world.
Much in the way that the fact that you can no longer exchange your daughter's hand in marriage for livestock means that "traditional marriage" has changed.
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"You said it was terrific! I'm so sorry you had such a horrifying experience at that restaurant!!"
😂
She was incensed! She couldn't accept that English runs on feels for most native speakers.
Language coevolves with us, just like everything else in the world.
2A exercise it before you can't do shit