Abuse of the language.....

[Free For All]

I'm not usually obsessive with language skills, but when newscasters and politicians do it, it starts to get my attention.

When did the word "transition" become a verb? You know, like "Iraq is transitioning to a new government". Everyone's using it that way- I thought it was a noun.

I gave up on "new-q-lar". Dubya's just gonna say it that way.

I didn't know "ironical" was a word, but on another thread someone looked it up, and so it is!

Another favorite- "irregardless". Not a word.

One thing I notice everywhere is "apostrophe abuse". "Open Sunday's", "Used Car's", etc. The word "its" (or "it's") seems to create a lot of confusion.

It's really not a big deal I guess, but it just seems like people don't care anymore.

[wesbed]

I'm glad there is somebody besides just myself who noticed that the politicians and newcasters can't correctly pronounce the word nuclear. It seems like I remember Mondale and Dukakis pronouncing the word in a more nukuler fashion.

Also, I've noticed TV people get the words Calvary and cavalry confused.

Edited November 23, 2003 by wesbed

[BFrank]

I believe Carter was known to say "nukular" frequently. I'm sure we could find out for sure if we axed the right people.

My latest peeve (though not exactly an abuse of the language) is the term, "at the end of the day". EVERYONE'S using it, all the time, and it's so tired.....already!

Example: "We're pushing this legislation, because 'at the end of the day' it will create more jobs."

[Jim Alfredson]

Yes, you're right. "Transitioning" is not a word. Transition, transitional or transitionary are words, but it is not a verb.

Living in Michigan, I'm constantly annoyed by how people speak around here. They have that really nasal midwestern thing going on. It's funny, I've lived here all my life, but I don't think I have as bad as a midwestern accent as some people do.

My favorite are car salesmen. It's not "hundred" anymore, it's "hunerd". 100 HUNERD DOLLARS!

Another weird midwestern thing (or maybe it's just a Lansing thing) is the word "always". Most people around here pronounce it "ol-ways". Drives me nuts. Even my wife does it.

[wesbed]

My latest peeve (though not exactly an abuse of the language) is the term, "at the end of the day". EVERYONE'S using it, all the time, and it's so tired.....already!

Example: "We're pushing this legislation, because 'at the end of the day' it will create more jobs."

I don't like the term, it's a win-win situation. Yes, tired of that one.

I often hear this phrase in the workplace. For example, "If we raise the price of our product because we've improved our product, and our customers buy more of our product, well... it's a win-win situation." Blaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!

Whoops, there's another one I'm tired of. The workplace.

Shit.

Edited November 23, 2003 by wesbed

[David Williams]

As long as we're letting off steam: there's no capital letter after a colon.

Edited November 23, 2003 by David Williams

[JSngry]

Well, let me play Devil's advocate here and say that I find the constant fluxuation of our lanksguage facsinating. People react phonetically to their worldyismic experncieses, express their psychetiticles through sound and stuff, and you can learn a lot about peesples just from'a lissenin to how they say stuff, and stuff like that stuff.

Now that don't mean that I nescafesarahlee LIKE all the changes I'm hearinating...

[wesbed]

Well, let me play Devil's advocate here and say that I find the constant fluxuation of our lanksguage facsinating. People react phonetically to their worldyismic experncieses, express their psychetiticles through sound and stuff, and you can learn a lot about peesples just from'a lissenin to how they say stuff, and stuff like that stuff.

Now that don't mean that I nescafesarahlee LIKE all the changes I'm hearinating...

Ya, easy for you to say.

Edited November 23, 2003 by wesbed

[Brandon Burke]

Jim brings up a good point. This is likely not what he meant (sorry) but I'll go on record as saying I'm fascinated with the way that hip hop culture has cut apart and reassembled Anglo English. Actually, and at the expense of whatever credibility I might have here, I wrote my Masters thesis on the manupulation of Anglo English in hip hop; more specifically, by the Wu-Tang Clan in the mid-90's. Those guys are really damned interesting. Easily on par with the canonical Sun Ra/P-Funk/Lee Perry "crazy guys commenting on modern culture" scenario we've all heard about 900 times. Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, GZA and Inspectah Deck I find the most interesting. Ghost and Rae tend to employ rhymes involving phrase upon phrase without any apparent connection; only a series (again) phrases stacked upon one another. I mean, even most hip hop folks will tell you that (even if you understand the dialect) Rae is way out in left field:

"We split a fair one, poker nose money

Gin rummy with glare, spot the lame, bit his ear

Yo, you taste a tea - spoon, 300 goons, stash baloons

Locked in lab rooms, hit with glock, stashed in Grant's Tomb

Clocked him like a patient, his stock's full, hustle invasion

Knowin now, we cocked a block off, the chain tri - color

Freezin in valor, ice - sicle galore

Gas station light gleamin on the wall

Cop WiseGuy jams, James Bond vans

Niggaz flipped Timbs, rock boats under water, watch clams

Pose at the stand - off, mad timid

Hopin that the gun fall, guess him like lottery balls, yo"

That's some seriosuly abstract business--yet, in context, it creates its own narrative--and I know a fair amount about hip hop lingo. You just have to let it come to you and, even then, it still won't "make sense". It's a lyrical/narrative tone poem in the way that David Lynch works. GZA, on the other hand, is particularly notorious for deconstructing the language and even uttered the phrase, "Operation: Project English" in 1997.

Inspectah Deck on Wu-Tang Forever summed up the breakdown of Western grammatical structure (and its subsequent misunderstanding) rather well by saying:

"I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies

And hypothesis can't define how I be droppin these

Mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery"

Amazing stuff....

[vibes]

I think some of these things that we find annoying, such as "nu-cu-lar" are actually regional variants in English. I've always found this topic truly fascinating, and took as many classes on dialectology and linguistics (Chinese, not English) as were available in my major in college.

Here's an interesting site I found last year regarding American dialects:

Dialect Survey

I found going through all the questions very interesting. I discovered that I frequently pronounce or use words differently than people around me, simply because I am conscious of the fact that they say/use them incorrectly. Ah, the joys of being uptight...

[A Lark Ascending]

Be careful.

There are people in the UK who would date the start of this process to a time that most of you will soon be commemorating with slap-up dinners!

I'm with the 'let it evolve' side. Language is going to go its own way(s) however anyone tries to freeze it (a bit like jazz!). As long as it continues to communicate with breadth and nuance then I don't have a worry.

There's a pressure group over here called something like the Campaign for Real English - every now and then they get on the wireless and I have to throw things at it. This get's dangerous in the car.

A couple of years back the school examining boards in the UK were having fits about students writing their answers in mobile phone text!

Today on the wireless there was something about requests that Scrabble include numbers to allow text message words to be used. I am sure this will provoke the usual flurry of irritation.

Edited November 23, 2003 by Bev Stapleton

[JSngry]

Jim brings up a good point.  This is likely not what he meant (sorry) but I'll go on record as saying I'm fascinated with the way that hip hop culture has cut apart and reassembled Anglo English.

No need to be sorry, It is at least partially what I meant, seeing as how I've spent a fair amount of my life in "situations" that were primarily African-American populated and hear, understood, and, most importantly, felt the result of people altering both pronunciations and vocabulary to meet their own expressive needs. I mean - what meaning does "bull dagger" have in "regular" English? And the hip-hop vernacular somes from nowhere if not from deep within a certain segment of that demographic? And yes, I'm fully aware that not all African-Americans speak in non-traditional ways. This ain't a stereotype, it's an observation about how SOME people bend the language to make it do what they want/need it to do. It's really a very American thing to do, and, to give it a jazz connection, it's something that Lester Young was a virtuoso of!

Besides, you go into rural areas in the South and the Southeast and you'll hear every bit as much variation/manipulation of the language as you would deep in the hood. It's part of what people do when they, for whatever reason, don't feel "connected" with "proper" culture - they make their own and pass it on. It's only those who feel an affinity for such culture, or want to suceed/proceed in it who find it important to speak in that manner. FWIW, I myself think it's crucial to know proper English and grammer (hey - I don't want to live outside the norm ALL the time), but I also feel a right/want/need to trick it up whenever I gets the urge.

Nobody wants to be a repeater pencil.

Edited November 23, 2003 by JSngry

[JSngry]

I'm with the 'let it evolve' side. Language is going to go its own way(s) however anyone tries to freeze it (a bit like jazz!). As long as it continues to communicate with breadth and nuance then I don't have a worry.

WORD!

[JSngry]

Well, let me play Devil's advocate here and say that I find the constant fluxuation of our lanksguage facsinating. People react phonetically to their worldyismic experncieses, express their psychetiticles through sound and stuff, and you can learn a lot about peesples just from'a lissenin to how they say stuff, and stuff like that stuff.

Now that don't mean that I nescafesarahlee LIKE all the changes I'm hearinating...

Ya, easy for you to say.

It's become so. But first I had to get in touch with my Inner Country Boy.

[Jim R]

I'm willing to let a lot of things slide, but I still recognize a whole lot of abuse going on. I hold on to a few pet peeves, though. One of them is the widespread misuse of the phrase "I could care less". If you could care less (than you actually do), that means you CARE (more than you otherwise might). On the other hand, if you couldn't care less, that means.... YOU COULD NOT CARE ANY LESS THAN YOU ACTUALLY CARE!!! (...sorry, didn't mean to yell. )

As for this thread.... I could care less, which might explain why I posted.

[jlhoots]

People say they're nauseous.

Nauseous means capable of causing nausea.

When you're sick to your stomach, you're nauseated.

Of course, some who say they're nauseous really are.

[GregK]

I don't know which frustrates (frustrate's??) me more, the apostrophe abuse mentioned above, or the over- and misuse of the word "like" for everything. I'm, like, totally sick of it!!! all these abuse's are like everywhere!!

[wesbed]

I don't know which frustrates (frustrate's??) me more, the apostrophe abuse mentioned above, or the over- and misuse of the word "like" for everything. I'm, like, totally sick of it!!! all these abuse's are like everywhere!!

I started using the word like, like, several years ago. To be, you know, like, humorous? Then, I kinda, like, got in the habit of it. Now, it's, like, a part of my regular script. Like, you know what I mean, man?

Edited November 23, 2003 by wesbed

[Uncle Skid]

My personal favorite is "for all intensive purposes". A close second is "the point is mute".

Also, this may be a Michigan thing, but I've heard many people say "youse guys", or even "youse guyses". This is usually heard in restaurants, as in "are youse guyses ready to order yet?".

[maren]

My personal favorite is "for all intensive purposes". A close second is "the point is mute".

Also, this may be a Michigan thing, but I've heard many people say "youse guys", or even "youse guyses". This is usually heard in restaurants, as in "are youse guyses ready to order yet?".

Two interesting points, Uncle Skid! They kind of epitomize where my feelings diverge.

Yeah, I'm annoyed or amused by mistakes like "the point is mute" or the confusion of it's (it is) and its (of or belonging to "it"). Especially when it's done by people who believe they're in the know!

But youse guys, you guys (as we said in Wisconsin), yuhz, yooce, alla yez, YOU-all, y'all, "you lot" (as Bev may say?) -- people may call it "wrong" or "quaint" but it actually fills a grammatical need that "standard" English somehow lost (while "transitioning" from old Norse/Saxon/French roots?) -- the need for the second person plural! Lots of other languages have it, but we don't! So every little region comes up with its way of making itself clear!

And I believe youse guyses might be youse guys's (of or belonging to all of you)! ("Is this youse guys's check?")

[A Lark Ascending]

There's also the 'Clueless' effect.

"That's so not funny.'

British teenagers now talk like Californians, without the accent (they're working on that!)!

Some of these 'unnecessary' words - like, for all intensive purposes, basically - do serve a purpose. They give space in a sentence to think about what you're going to say next.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Some of these 'unnecessary' words - like, for all intensive purposes, basically - do serve a purpose. They give space in a sentence to think about what you're going to say next.

Like the professional athletes who somehow manage to seed a sentence with 'you know'...two or three times over? I always enjoy hearing that peculiar placeholder 'jigga' (sp?) that the Chinese use so liberally.

[Swinging Swede]

But youse guys, you guys (as we said in Wisconsin), yuhz, yooce, alla yez, YOU-all, y'all, "you lot" (as Bev may say?) -- people may call it "wrong" or "quaint" but it actually fills a grammatical need that "standard" English somehow lost (while "transitioning" from old Norse/Saxon/French roots?) -- the need for the second person plural!  Lots of other languages have it, but we don't!

You actually have the plural form! It's the singular form you don't have, or at least don't use much anymore. 'Ye/you' always was the plural form, while 'thou/thee' was the singular form, which for some reason was abandoned. Perhaps it's time to revive it? What dost thou think about that idea? Or maybe that should be: What thinkst thou about that idea?

[maren]

You actually have the plural form! It's the singular form you don't have, or at least don't use much anymore. 'Ye/you' always was the plural form, while 'thou/thee' was the singular form, which for some reason was abandoned. Perhaps it's time to revive it? What dost thou think about that idea? Or maybe that should be: What thinkst thou about that idea?

Thank thee! I suspected we needed some grammar lessons! But I think it's a little late to bring "thee" back -- it's probably trademarked by Quaker Oats!

[maren]

Some of these 'unnecessary' words - like, for all intensive purposes, basically - do serve a purpose. They give space in a sentence to think about what you're going to say next.

Like the professional athletes who somehow manage to seed a sentence with 'you know'...two or three times over? I always enjoy hearing that peculiar placeholder 'jigga' (sp?) that the Chinese use so liberally.

Doch, doch, na ja. Eben!

Edited November 23, 2003 by maren