What happened to the English language?

Discussion in 'Member Casual Chat' started by Le Chef, Feb 2, 2018.

  1. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    The fact is that we are discussing the English language in the Member Casual Chatroom, not the personal or political shortcomings of Donald Trump. You are purposefully derailing the thread with political points.

    Now I'm asking you again: please go somewhere else.
     
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  2. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Now you're being insulting. I'm asking you again to post elsewhere.
     
  3. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for your politeness. I mistook the chat room for another convo going on.

    I apologize.

    Have courage, stay calm, and wait for the signs.
     
  4. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well you'll have seen by now it hasn't gone away, but welcome back Ritty - we missed you.
     
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  5. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Le Chef: If you'd thanked me for that I'd have recommended the even funnier one which I'm reading now; but as you didn't, find it for yourself! :p
     
  6. Canell

    Canell Well-Known Member

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    Hate to disappoint you but the rhythm sucks too. I have the feeling they write the melody as for 5 years olds now.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2018
  7. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Junk music, junk food, and junk entertainment more or less sums up today's Western societies. Someone will now take a guess at my age being '70 to 80'! :rolleyes:
     
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  8. Ritter

    Ritter Well-Known Member

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    Really? Interesting. I would not think that the older folks were as contaminated by the linguistic malware.

    Why you have only been able to observe this trend at Facebook is very hard to answer. The natural follow-up question would of course be if it is Facebook that attracts illeterates or if it is Facebook that turns people illeterate. :p

    I would still say this is a more widespread phenomenon that exists outside social media (I would argue social media is a reflection of society rather than the other way around). I still think SMS and online chats play an imlortant role together with a dysfunctional public school and an unhealthy fetishisation of equality, tabula rasa and also the focus on mathematics over language.

    Video killed the radio star and internet killed the video start. But long before, radio killed the book star... Or something like that.

    12 years of school is, pretty much, mandatory and how this can correlate with dropping reading comprehension, declining sense of grammar and awful spelling is a big mystery.
     
  9. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    That's because, basically speaking, the internet isn't a formal writing format. People are basically writing informally like they speak on the internet (including texting).
     
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  10. Ritter

    Ritter Well-Known Member

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    I did not interpret crank as someone being annoyed with dumb "chat abbreviations" or other forms of "online lingo", but rather as being shocked over the poor spelling and grammar adults on FB dispose.
     
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  11. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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  12. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Who is Crank?
     
  13. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    There was a thread somewhere on this PF series of forums about the subject of irritating words or expressions. It developed into quite a list of terms. I'll have to see if I can find it.

    Meanwhile, I too recall a movie (can't remember the name) in which the English of bygone times was involved. I think it may have been a sci-fi of a man from the 1600s or so who somehow found himself in our modern world. I was very impressed with the apparent intelligence conveyed by the language with its carried implications, symbolic expressions of reference to one thing implying another, etc. And I thought about how we are butchering the language and cheapening it in the process. We have everything from ignorance of words and their usage, to intentional slang "lazy" expressions, and new "invented" buzz words becoming mainstream. Just listen to how many people say in ignorance "is is", as in expressions like "the problem is is that the....." or "today the belief is is that ....."

    Don't get me started. There are too many other such disasters of language.
     
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  14. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    I posted above about "is, is". And now I'd like to draw a parallel with another aspect of language. Propaganda. But first a short story...

    Some time ago I took a trip from my home in Oregon and travelled back to my roots in New England to visit a friend. I mentioned to him that I was surprised at all the people I heard saying "is, is" and gave him a couple of examples. He said it must be a regional thing because he had never heard anyone back home say it, and he chuckled at the absurdity of "is, is".

    It wasn't 5 minutes later he said about another topic "the only explanation is is that..." and I interrupted him immediately and exclaimed "you just said it! - is is!!". He paused and turned a rather bright red. He didn't know he said it unconsciously and he hadn't noticed anyone else saying it. So I began occasionally mentioning it to people when the opportunity came up and asked if they had ever heard anyone say it, and nearly every one of them said they had not. And most of them I later noticed that they said it. But they didn't notice. They had heard it said, they adopted the expression unconsciously, and they said it unconsciously, and denied that they ever said it.

    Propaganda is like that. We heard it repeated most of our lives, we adopted it, and we deny it's not true. The difference is that we consciously repeat propaganda while denying that it is propaganda. And we have a TON of it. The idea that we have seen what communist society is because they have existed is one of those items of propaganda. Same with socialism. And that is just the beginning.
     
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  15. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Something else I have picked up on is a tendency to be grammatically lazy in stringing together clauses, e.g. a group of people that I don't know who they are. I heard something like that, especially the conjunction and second clause, in someone's rapidly delivered speech. I think it might have been Pat Contri in one of his CU Podcasts, actually. That is not a traditionally correct way to formulate such a clause, but again the tendency today appears to be to slap words and clauses together as quickly and effortlessly as possible. People are just in a hurry to get through what they're saying and don't generally care how they say it. Call them on it and they will shrug it off. You know what I meant! Well, sure, buddy, but that's not the point :D
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2018
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  16. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    And that reminds me of the current popular but incorrect use of the word "which". It is so contrary to the meaning and intended use that I find it very difficult to invent an example, but if you're a person who pays attention and is aware of language, you probably know exactly what I mean. I'll try to come back later with an example if someone else doesn't.
     
  17. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Can't be sure, but it does seem like I've heard that one misused. Seems like it's used similarly to how I described before, being thrown in as a conjunction to tie two clauses together where it shouldn't be, but I'll be damned if I can think of an example right now.
     
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  18. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Right! Something like "I went to the grocery store which I was planning to get some ice cream but ....."
     
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  19. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yeah, that sounds like the kind of stuff I've heard. I suppose we have to accept that language changes and evolves, and that people speaking informally aren't bound by any official rules. What we do would be described as prescriptive linguistics, I think, applying certain rules to prescribe how a language should be spoken.
     
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  20. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    My mother was pretty good at teaching us good grammar. Neither my sister nor I suffer such egregious failings as we're discussing. And that shows that such errors are the result of poor education, poor examples, and laziness.
     
  21. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yeah. We can identify the problem easily enough, but I don't know about changing it. Can't really force people to give a crap about their language, though schools can certainly implement supportive policies. I suppose more could be done there, at least, but there is no telling how much of a difference it would make.
     
  22. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    There are two possible legitimate excuses for saying, "is is."

    First, maybe they meant it the way Bill Clinton meant it: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

    Second, maybe it's just a person groping for a predicate adjective: "I think it is ... is ... outrageous that the government can't balance the budget."

    It's not one of those situations, is is it? (That last part's a joke.)
     
  23. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    No, it's not. I cannot think of any word for which it is never, ever correct to express it in such duplicate. Give me a word and I'll correctly use it in a repetition in a sentence for you. But I used to listen to Obama consistently say it, like "the one piece of legislation most needed today is, is the reform of ....."

    I even once heard a politician say a version of it that I've heard other people say, and it goes something like this: "the biggest problem found with that was is that it ...."

    And I have found consistently that when a person claims to have not heard anyone say it, THEY, THEMSELVES say it and quite unconsciously of course.
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2018
  24. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    * ... or "basically"

    * or "ya' know"

    * or "multiple"

    * or "in terms of"

    * or ..... "do", as in "I'm gonna' do a search of the premises" rather than "I am going to search the premises"

    * and "area" as in "this is the kitchen area" rather than "this is the kitchen"

    * and "at that point in time" rather than "at that point"

    * and "indicated", such as "she indicted" rather than, "she said"

    * and "what I'm gonna' do now", as in "what I'm gonna' do now is I'm gonna' sweep the floor" rather than "I am going to sweep the floor"

    * and "gotten" rather than "got" as in ........ "the language has gotten so bad"

    Not backwards? Oh yes, we are already on the way. If you are not certain just look at the rap artist waving his fingers in the air and patting himself on the chest to let you know that he is talking about himself. Sign language, burps, belches, grunts and farts ........ that's what lies in store for us.
     
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  25. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's called 'growing up on the street'.
     

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