Words we've ruined
Let's explore the words that we've destroyed through misuse.
Etymology is fun. Yup, I really believe that. Where words were born and how they got to be where they are now.
Clear, concise communication requires all parties to understand the same things from the same words. Sloppy speech is anti-social. Then again... I've been called a grammar-Nazi .
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The use of vocabulary on NewsTalkers is... interesting...
Interesting? Often I've found it to be misleading to the extent of incompetent, but perhaps I'm being unfair because I majored in English Literature and taught English in a high school for 6 years and privately after that. The only time I'll use words that have been misused and misconstrued, especially politicized, such as "woke" is to say what they really mean, because to me it means having ended sleep, and nobody is going to stop me from using the usual masculine and feminine words.
Thank you for posting interesting topics. Sorry if I can't comment intelligently on them since you mostly use YouTube and web sites that I'm unable to open. I'm quite happy that your articles push political topics off the page, but please go easy on my movie quizzes and jokes.
A show that I found on NPR called " A Way with Words " swims in a common stream...
I’ve been called a grammar Nazi”.
I’ve been called many things online. Even accused of being “Anti-Semantic”.
Which is totally false.
OTOH some people have said I’m actually a very cunning linguist!
You're lucky. I've been called worse than that.
"Country humor":
Call me anything you want-- just don't call me late for dinner!
(Or maybe that was third grade humor, I ferget)
As an ''English is my second language'' person I recognize that I do make mistakes with the language from time to time but there are some English words that I just love, the word ''cockwobble'' is a classic.
I've tried to teach some of our members a few words or phrases in my native language but in some cases, it hasn't worked out too well...I most likely started with words much too difficult such as miinibaashkiminasiganibiitoosijiganibadagwiingweshiganibakwezhigan, which most of the English speakers just murdered..
Actually, I'm having a bit of fun Outis, I have a keen interest in language, including English. The intricacies of each language are fascinating. Language is, IMO the heart of a culture of the speakers, kill the language and you've killed the culture.
This is why language must defended.
Some things that used to be considered unacceptable are now generally accepted.
For example, it used to be considered very incorrect to ever split infinitives-- now I believe its generally accepted OK.
The French are very proud (and sometimes even arrogant) of various aspects of French culture. And this incluces the French language.
They even have an institution called the Académie Française:
The Académie Française [a] , also known as the French Academy , is the principal French council for matters pertaining to the French language . The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu , the chief minister to King Louis XIII . [1]
Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution , it was restored as a division of the Institut de France in 1803 by Napoleon Bonaparte . [1] It is the oldest of the five académies of the institute. The body has the duty of acting as an official authority on the language; it is tasked with publishing an official dictionary of the language.
That sounds like a word from British English, not American English (?)
Of course most words in American English are the same in English as spoken in other countries-- but in some other English speaking countries there are different words.
Especially Australian English! How many of these words are Amiericans familiar with?
Waltzing Matilda
Once a jolly swagman camped by a Billabong
Under the shade of a Coolabah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"
Down come a jumbuck to drink at the water hole
Up jumped a swagman and grabbed him in glee
And he sang as he stowed him away in his tucker bag
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me'".
Up rode the Squatter a riding his thoroughbred
Up rode the Trooper - one, two, three
"Where's that jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?",
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me"
But the swagman he up and jumped in the water hole
Drowning himself by the Coolabah tree,
And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the Billabong,
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"
The unoffical Australian National Anthem. I love it having lived in Oz for years (my kids, grandkids and greatgrand kids still live there) it's a great place with their own version of English.
Here are a few more unusual/interesting words:
Nippy, palaver and cockwomble: Greatest words in English?
Indubitably coruscating lingo, but what are your comely faves?
I can't even pronounce that
A while back I almost bought this book:
Eats, Shoots and leaves: The Zero Toler4ance Approach to Punctuation
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss , the former host of BBC Radio 4 's Cutting a Dash programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punctuation in the United Kingdom and the United States and describes how rules are being relaxed in today's society. Her goal is to remind readers of the impor tance of punctuation in the English language by mixing humour and instruction.
The book was a commercial success. In 2004, the US edition became a New York Times best-seller .
i prefer making the rules whence using the English language, and am off X criter sized four my mannerism/,N eye can't C moi' being in flEWenced , irregardles of n e consequences , for consequences coincidentally are inconsequential whence
con sidered buy prose un like me biing a vowel 4 too hundred 50, and i will put it on my wedding cake, baked inn an E Z baked oven, like my mind at the moment , cuz eye saw myself tellin till tolled by a John wilks phoney phone booth win that tolled a pa speaker that blew off there Jersey not knew, yet known like a clown lookin for a clone that smelt like sully fir pelt tin roof wit a cat that danced, till pause went knumb, 4 the cold caught the kitty buy the pus in boots booted cuz knot suited fore ware tale rooted N BEER
Poetry is free to do as it pleases.