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Creative Cowboy

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It is just me or does some use of the language seem to you like some slacker ghetto slang? You know, by Justin Beiber hipster wannabe types.

gifting = giving, donating, contributing, favouring
trialing = trying, testing
mechanical doping = fraud

[edited to add]
adorbs = (childish) saccharin from an adult mouth

:Lecture:
It's like the container of our minds has shrunk to the allotment of a text message. Why is this "dumbed down" being promoted to people by the media?! I hope there is (at least) some conspirational thought behind it and we're not simply slipping into a literate Dark Age on our own.:Soapbox:

I haven't made a list or anything - I try to block this and emoji out of my mind - but when I see it (usually there use coupled "complimented" with really badly grammer) I get a feeling our species is approachig a point in time beyond the curve; when the present people who do not know how to communicate with each other without Facebook updates become incapable of the basic literate expression.

As a writer, this irks me. As a writer who cares about the craft, being aware the barriers to publishing are crumbling to commercialized interests in vanity publishing overcoming the more humble pride in self-expression, I intuit this opened value to dross must eventually devalue everyone's work in the marketplace with its flood.
 
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aliwood

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No you didn't. I was going to reply on the point of 'mechanical doping'. I would just call it 'cheating' personally (and given what it's doing to the world of cycling at the moment, it's another thing we don't need and quite frankly there are times when I just want to throw up my hands in despair at my favourite sport and walk away, but that's a whole other thing), but your point is well made, we don't call things what they are anymore and over here we haven't for years.

Sanitation engineer? Rat catcher

I could list you heaps and there are loads out there. All I can hope is that the idea of 144 characters catches on and we start using better words with less flannel. It's like we want to pretend really. Pretend our jobs are better than the impression they give. Pretend the problem is just a 'situation'.

It makes you, or rather me, wonder what we're all scared of. Why don't we call things what they really are anymore?
 
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smokymountainlvr

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It is just me or does some use of the language seem to you like some slacker ghetto slang? You know, by Justin Beiber hipster wannabe types.

gifting = giving, donating, contributing, favouring
trialing = trying, testing
mechanical doping = fraud

[edited to add]
adorbs = (childish) saccharin from an adult mouth

:Lecture:
It's like the container of our minds has shrunk to the allotment of a text message. Why is this "dumbed down" being promoted to people by the media?! I hope there is (at least) some conspirational thought behind it and we're not simply slipping into a literate Dark Age on our own.:Soapbox:

I haven't made a list or anything - I try to block this and emoji out of my mind - but when I see it (usually there use coupled "complimented" with really badly grammer) I get a feeling our species is approachig a point in time beyond the curve; when the present people who do not know how to communicate with each other without Facebook updates become incapable of the basic literate expression.

As a writer, this irks me. As a writer who cares about the craft, being aware the barriers to publishing are crumbling to commercialized interests in vanity publishing overcoming the more humble pride in self-expression, I intuit this opened value to dross must eventually devalue everyone's work in the marketplace with its flood.

I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and of course everyone needs to rant every now and then, but I think your comment indicates a lack of consideration on your part. It sounds as if you're looking down at people who don't communicate the way you prefer to communicate. Maybe that's not how you meant to come across, but if it was, you're wrong and you need to try to view the world more complexly. People who use a different language than you aren't lesser beings. They usually have a reason for talking / communicating the way they do, and you'll never be able to empathize with them if you just write off their actions as symptoms of a culture descending into a doom of stupidity. (The doom of stupidity is nonexistent, by the way. There is much more knowledge being spread nowadays than there ever has been in the history of humanity.)

I would argue that their communication can only really be criticized if the people they're trying to communicate with don't understand what they're trying to say. It's possible that you're just not their intended audience. And also, just because forms of communication are new doesn't necessarily make them bad. As a writer, I think my job is to add to people's lives through providing entertainment and/or thought provoking ideas. I don't think the job of a writer is to dictate how people can or can't communicate.
 

slcboston

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Again, the language evolves.

It always has. It always will. Some changes stick, some don't.


Either get used to it, or speak French (which, for those of you who do not know, has an official body to oversee what changes can and cannot be officially made to the language - which also may, in part, explain why it went from being the dominant language on the planet to a very distant third or fourth, depending on how you want to look at it).

:Lecture:

- - - Updated - - -

<snips rant>

This was totes adorbs of you, btw, but whatevs.
 

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I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinions,


Well, to condescend, you really need to be as high up as you think you are. Glad you’re sharing your opinion.

Maybe in the catch-as-catch-can world of vanity press [self-publishing eliminates the editor and is even cheaper] from where you argue your point it is entirely as you say but I do assure you there is a thing beyond vernacular residing in the dominion of mechanics and grammar.

Ask those teaching written language arts at an accredited school. Try the literature department or the composition teacher. (Argue to no avail for the academic merit of Wikipedia links too, while you’re at it.)

and of course everyone needs to rant every now and then, but I think your comment indicates a lack of consideration on your part. It sounds as if you're looking down at people who don't communicate the way you prefer to communicate.


You definitely need the sympathy vote to support your position. Is this your standard answer to publisher rejection letters?

Maybe that's not how you meant to come across, but if it was, you're wrong and you need to try to view the world more complexly.


No, I came to bury Caesar, and to network with the like-minded of the writers’ senate. Like-minded would be those who work hard at their craft and do not flood the market with dross that others are too polite to call out. Here you’ve smoothly turned the need for “thick skin” not on the arrogant and pompous writer, of your example, but against all those struggling with the craft itself.

You toss out the need for even the simplest education, the rigour of academia; and with the baby your intellectual honesty.

People who use a different language than you aren't lesser beings.


Your penchant for the straw man argument is noted.

They usually have a reason for talking / communicating the way they do,


You’re couching yourself in class warfare, perhaps? You’re saying people from the ghetto can’t do better than fiddy-sense on the intellectual dollar? Maybe such people should just lay down a warm carpet for your feet? Throw them an occasional bone of encouragement so they do not get up themselves.

Contrary to your argument for unloading the cranial caliper, I am saying it is a shame some do not aspire higher in their own native language; and a greater shame belongs to those who help perpetuate such jive talk. You have a problem with what I am saying clearly.

and you'll never be able to empathize with them if you just write off their actions as symptoms of a culture descending into a doom of stupidity. (The doom of stupidity is nonexistent, by the way. There is much more knowledge being spread nowadays than there ever has been in the history of humanity.)


When people who can read find no sense from what they do read, are they still literate? Are we to devolve into the written language chaos that existed before The King’s English was the law (and hence arising the idiom, The King’s English)? Are we to celebrate the leaders of such linguistic decay, even as we pay lip-service to those who teach our children a language you say is dead before it hits the ground running? Who are you trying to impress when you use words like “evolution” of language in your elitist couch of simple laziness?

I would argue that their communication can only really be criticized if the people they're trying to communicate with don't understand what they're trying to say.


Your straw man is misleading. I am not pointing out differences in technical writing or a foreign language. I am pointing out a media-driven decay of the language. You may write for an audience with difficulty to grasp a difference between “their,” “they’re,” and “there” in the vernacular, which informs you that such distinction is unimportant to (good) writing; and you are arrogant enough to assume your argument is on the side of evolution.

It's possible that you're just not their intended audience. And also, just because forms of communication are new doesn't necessarily make them bad. As a writer, I think my job is to add to people's lives through providing entertainment and/or thought provoking ideas. I don't think the job of a writer is to dictate how people can or can't communicate.


As a writer propounding ideas to other writers, you’re providing a bad example in your defense of the indefensible. To ignore the rules, one needs to first be aware of them.

You may think such transgressions as “mechanical doping” are in the footfalls of Shakespeare or Spenser but I can assure you they are not.

Again, the language evolves.


It does. And it stands to reason it can devolve too. It is always easier to pander to the lowest common denominator, and the argument for devolution being easier than evolution. At one point it was evolving, including more and more into a richer conversation, at a slower, controlled rate – my examples from the 16[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

Cacophony is not the equivalent of an evolving language when the cacophony was its origin point.

But, like I say, networking… I am interested in writers who take their craft serious enough that they feel indignant to the promotion of slack writing. I am hoping some of them will intellectually rub off on me, and visa-versa. That’s the agenda of the post. No more.
 

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Setting up to move to a more appropriate forum.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Mod Note:


Hi folks, welcome to Critical Theory and Philosophy of Language. As you might gather from the move, the tone of this conversation is going to have to change.

The OP is asking a complex sophisticated question about language change, albeit in a somewhat laid-back fashion. Others have pointed out that language evolves (not devolves, there really is no such thing), but how and why is a subtle question.

Clearly modern English is changing. But how much?

A speaker of Old English would not recognize our tongue and might wonder how we could get along with no cases and modals in place of tenses and moods. They might also wonder why we have so much French and other languages in it.

The OP seems to be arguing that certain kinds of language changes are damaging to the language itself.

Why? What makes particular changes useful and others hurtful?

Evolution is a process of mutation and selection. The mutation of language comes in the speaking and writing of it; the selection arises in the transmission of that speech and writing.

From here on in opinion will not suffice. If someone finds a particular use of language damaging they'll need to explain why they think that. Personal aesthetics don't matter.

What harm is being done or what help is being given to users of the language by any particular change?
 

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Wolcott Gibbs, former editor of the New Yorker magazine:

Writers always use too damn many adverbs. On one page recently I found eleven modifying the verb "said." "He said morosely, violently, eloquently, so on." Editorial theory should probably be that a writer who can't make his context indicate the way his character is talking ought to be in another line of work. Anyway, it is impossible for a character to go through all those emotional states one after the other. Lon Chaney might be able to do that, but he is dead.

Saw this on another site today. If any of us are lucky enough we might someday hear this kind of rant from a successful editor.

It's true. If the reader has to be told that the mood is morose, or that the action is violent, or the setting eloquent then the writer has just not done the job of setting the scene and is fortunate that the reader has lasted this long and is still listening to the narration. Readers want to be in a dream. Good writers don't interrupt that dream with modifiers and qualifications.
 

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It is just me or does some use of the language seem to you like some slacker ghetto slang? You know, by Justin Beiber hipster wannabe types.

I think you are being extremely generous to Justin Beiber :tongue

On topic, slang goes in and out of style. I suspect most people who use it on social media sites are trying to show how with it and cool they are.
 

Silva

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Either get used to it, or speak French (which, for those of you who do not know, has an official body to oversee what changes can and cannot be officially made to the language - which also may, in part, explain why it went from being the dominant language on the planet to a very distant third or fourth, depending on how you want to look at it).

I believe they also do this in Iceland.
 

ColoradoGuy

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Wolcott Gibbs, former editor of the New Yorker magazine:

Writers always use too damn many adverbs. On one page recently I found eleven modifying the verb "said." "He said morosely, violently, eloquently, so on." Editorial theory should probably be that a writer who can't make his context indicate the way his character is talking ought to be in another line of work. Anyway, it is impossible for a character to go through all those emotional states one after the other. Lon Chaney might be able to do that, but he is dead.

Saw this on another site today. If any of us are lucky enough we might someday hear this kind of rant from a successful editor.

It's true. If the reader has to be told that the mood is morose, or that the action is violent, or the setting eloquent then the writer has just not done the job of setting the scene and is fortunate that the reader has lasted this long and is still listening to the narration. Readers want to be in a dream. Good writers don't interrupt that dream with modifiers and qualifications.

I believe it was Stephen King who said: "The road to hell is paved with adverbs."
 

KTC

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Doesn't matter if we like it or not. Language isn't static. We move with it or we don't. Meh.
 

Lillith1991

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Wolcott Gibbs, former editor of the New Yorker magazine:

Writers always use too damn many adverbs. On one page recently I found eleven modifying the verb "said." "He said morosely, violently, eloquently, so on." Editorial theory should probably be that a writer who can't make his context indicate the way his character is talking ought to be in another line of work. Anyway, it is impossible for a character to go through all those emotional states one after the other. Lon Chaney might be able to do that, but he is dead.

Saw this on another site today. If any of us are lucky enough we might someday hear this kind of rant from a successful editor.

It's true. If the reader has to be told that the mood is morose, or that the action is violent, or the setting eloquent then the writer has just not done the job of setting the scene and is fortunate that the reader has lasted this long and is still listening to the narration. Readers want to be in a dream. Good writers don't interrupt that dream with modifiers and qualifications.

I disagree. It isn't always feasible for someone to just infer someone is punching someone playfully instead of to hurt them or that their laugh is sad instead of happy. Not using adverbs when needed is taking show, don't tell to the extreme and is just as bad as too many adverbs. Use what is required and not one more.
 

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Thank you for the very nice compliment. I had not thought to start my own Topic on this subject, as I was just networking. The other forum Topic was a grab bag of heartache, achievement and delicious looking cakes where I thought to slip this in at a quiet moment. I found some like-minded folks, and some argument.

I do think this is a worthy subject for discussion. I am emotionally attached to it given my proximity to it, a new father living in a foreign country where ESL students routinely shame native speakers who cannot distinguish usage from mechanics or grammar (or between either of those). I would prefer lurking to leading this discussion to be honest because my baby does not permit me enough free time to properly participate. Now the ball is rolling, I hope to ease up and read the comments, using the reputation feature to reach out.


Still, I feel the need to point out some things.


Mod Note:


Hi folks, welcome to Critical Theory and Philosophy of Language. As you might gather from the move, the tone of this conversation is going to have to change.


The OP is asking a complex sophisticated question about language change, albeit in a somewhat laid-back fashion. Others have pointed out that language evolves (not devolves, there really is no such thing),


This citation would disagree with your surmise that language only improves over time
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/11/word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/ since language has become less of a factor in use on The Internet apparently, the OED has, accordingly, plucked its word of the year ignoring the alphabet entirely and returning to a hieroglyphic or flash card, which I contend is not a step forward for any language (unless we’re talking about rehabilitation for stroke victims – is that why some take a noun, like gift, and make it into a verb by way of gerund because of a stroke?). I do hope my daughter goes beyond flash cards in her language use because it would be a shame to bequeath her books she cannot understand even with a dictionary.

Ask anyone who does not practice a language how long they remember it well enough to describe intrinsic emotions or precise subjects. I am surround by language students and married to one so I feel I have a handle on this answer. Further, to tell the truth, I have lost some of my rich vocabulary after my daily exposure to the limited vocabulary of my native language by my gracious hosts. This result is after 34 years in my native country prior to my move here.


Add to this all the bending and twisting of language by everyone with an agenda and it is no wonder a breakdown occurs to the point the reader cannot trust the language in informational reading. I think this is evidenced by the popularity of Donald Trump’s unfiltered remarks – more so than for the remarks themselves. Of course, readers of fiction are more forgiving of authors who do this in their work.


I do not know if I can agree with a statement along the lines of we do not yet have enough examples to evidence that the climate of language has devolved when more and more writers are given an audience to do their level best providing readers with those examples.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/sports/mor...res-what-we-know-so-far/ar-BBprQIq?li=AAggNb9

Also, aside from transpositions, I am seeing examples of exemplary bad writing that are receiving very good reviews (that influence critical thinking, making some wonder “is it me or them”) for truly terrible writing. These accolades are coming from the end user rather than a politicized award or other such publicity hack. The self-published embarrassment Dungeon Crawl
immediately comes to mind from behind me on my shelf but so, too, does Tor Books’ hardcover Another Day, Another Dungeon, on the same self. This sort of crap writing is not simply a genre problem, despite examples coming from my genre of focus. My eye catches glimpses of the problem elsewhere too. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-...the-sex-talk-with-the-literary-review/7000636

To win the Bad Sex in Fiction Award the novel, List of the Lost, has to be “an otherwise good novel.” This only emphasizes that bad writing is not about a “bad” or socially taboo topic, but it rests within the juris/diction of the language itself. In simple terms, the word fuck is not an immediate flag rather to bad writing. Otherwise, novels like
Bear would not win Canada’s highest literary award. And, I should add to that, neither is poor grammar or mechanics when illustrating the writer’s grasp language within the context of dialogue. But when an entire novel is an overwrought, undercooked manuscript (such as in my examples above) or in a novel that “doesn't mix metaphors so much as liquefy them in a blender” then we’re talking devolution, like rot.

A few voices are calling this out but not enough compared with employed writers on the Internet, who will influence readers through repeated exposure, like rotting fruit spoiling everything in the barrel from the bottom up. It gets worse when writers, whose livelihoods depend on the written conveyance of message, apathetically shrug at this. This is our fight. Maybe it’s not a take-to-the-streets kind of pugilism but it is a fight nonetheless.


I am all for helping writers. I need help myself. I offer it too. It’s quid pro quo with me. But what are we helping writers for, what are these recipients of our help to become, authors of shameful dross in the elevated name of evolution?


but how and why is a subtle question.


Clearly modern English is changing. But how much?


A speaker of Old English would not recognize our tongue and might wonder how we could get along with no cases and modals in place of tenses and moods. They might also wonder why we have so much French and other languages in it.


Not so. English originated as a language mash-up of different peoples – Danes, Jutes, Ingles, & Saxons – living together in close proximity in the Dark Ages. They would understand what you’re describing perfectly, having lived it. They fought against one another, alongside one another, traded, intermarried and lived under a common law. This is the state of how English originated, and the reason the writing of it required a unifying ‘King’s English’ decree for understanding it. In practicality, England was the World Wide Web of its time.


A legitimate example might be one step removed from the continuum of language development. A computer in the 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century was different than one today, though still a noun. But the technological innovation impact on usage does not provide the evidence that grammar and mechanics have changed the written word – because only vernacular usage is referenced, akin to regional dialect in its spread. We have not seen computering as we see gifting. An Elizabethan writer, I believe, would understand modern written English as recently as the 1950s – a period of 350 years.


However these dialectical differences are entering the written language through the spread of the Internet at a rate the language cannot keep up. Not only must we contend with a regular diet of purposefully twisted meanings to whirl our braincells but, also, the cheap slang derived from poverty stricken text messages affects the language of all exposed to it on a regular basis. The trust in the very action of communication is being lost. So the student of the 1970s, who might have been challenged by reading Shakespeare might find reading an online news service more difficult – all within the span of one short generation, not over hundreds of years of gradual acceptance as in the past.


A side thought that comes to my mind is whether fledgling writers feel this loss of trust in written communication more acutely…? If the only examples held up are increasingly from the ash heap of ignorance and hipsters who like to gift adorb gifts and spell to, to, and to interchangeably. Writers honing his or her craft might well ask themselves why bother or who will be left to read it?


That’s why I say this is a fight for writers, and why I don’t think this is just my opinion. But we may be in the early stages.... like global warming.
 
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Lillith1991

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I disagree. Old English as spoken by the people and as it was written down was almost purely germanic in origin. Yes we can and they would understand a lot of individual words just like we do with german and other germanic lamguages, but that doesn't mean they would understand us and the structural changes made over the years. It's the same as a kid or second gen Cambodian American adult understanding a pigin version of Khmer that kids use or a highly regionalized version of the language and someone else being able to speak and write in the official version of khmer. One can't manipulate the language verbally and via written word the same way the other can.
 

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A legitimate example might be one step removed from the continuum of language development. .... An Elizabethan writer, I believe, would understand modern written English as recently as the 1950s – a period of 350 years.

One can't manipulate the language verbally and via written word the same way the other can.
But you're including a distance of place, prefaced by a tremendous gap in time, referrencing the opposite to the purpose of a language (particularly a lingua franca): clear communication. You've mixed apples and oranges, I think.
 

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There is some confusion here. Evolution does not mean improvement. Evolution is long term change brought about by mutation and selection. Given a way to mutate and a means of selection things will evolve.

Improvement is not an absolute concept. In order to assert that something has improved or become worse we need scales of measurement. Using different measurements the same development can be deemed an improvement or a drawback. This is why it is better to look at fit than improvement. How well does something fit in its environment and what effects does it have on that environment.

On matters of language, consider the development of jargons in specialized fields. Jargon makes it easy for specialists to convey complex ideas rapidly to each other, but in so doing they leave non-spedialists out of the conversation. The jargon can be seen as an evolutionary change in the language that aids fit in some circumstances, and hinders it in others. As a science writer, I see both sides of this and often need to bridge the gap created by the jargon, such as expliaining that Conformal Killing Fields are not dangerous.

Historical perspective is useful. Every generation complains about the slang of the younger generation while casually using its own in conversation. One can be hep to the jive, dig it, groovy, rad, bad, phat, or sick, but it all means cool.

Immigrants, along with learning the languages of their new nations gift those languages with loan words and ideas (along with fashions, cuisines, and new perspectives). Their adaptations are useful mutation sources that it is probably unwise to ignore.
 

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Yep, with evolution, better is a relative term, and the bar is not only being moved constantly (by the evolution of other members of one's own species and of different species), but sometimes the whole game gets moved to a different court. Today's star player will be tomorrow's has been, and not only because younger, better adapted versions of you come along (though this happens too).

It's sometimes analogous to imagining if you were an amazing soccer player, better than your peers at kicking goals. Your reproductive success is all but assured! But then some stupid volcano blows up, or an ice age starts, or something else shifts the dominant paradigm, and suddenly the game is about getting the ball into a basket thingy instead of kicking it into a goal.

Basketball players aren't more "evolved" than soccer players. But they're better at playing basketball.

This is why modern evolutionary biologists have largely abandoned terminology like "advanced" and "primitive" and instead use ones like "simple" versus "complex" or even better, "ancestral" versus "derived."

I'm not a linguist, but biological evolution is a useful analogy for the way languages can adapt and change too.

And as an aside, just as biologists worry about the loss of biodiversity caused by globalization and the dominance of our species over all others, linguists often worry about the loss of language diversity caused by globalization and the dominance of a few language cultures over all others.
 
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Maxx

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I believe it was Stephen King who said: "The road to hell is paved with adverbs."

But not with adverbial phrases? "With adverbs" is an adverbial phase modifying how the road to hell is paved. So I guess phrases are
less hellish?
 

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Language changes. We deal with it.

Slang, odd formations and clichés have been with us ever since Og decided to call the woolly mammoth a hairy tusker, and his friends started using it exclusively, to the annoyance of the older members of the tribe. People in Shakespeare's time, or Dickens' time didn't all speak like Shakespeare or Dickens. It's just that what probably annoyed the purists in their days now is "colourful language that reflects the time."

Think of the boy in A Christmas Carol who responds to Scrooge's request to buy a goose with the single word "Walker!" Without an explanation, it's meaningless now. At the time, many upper-class writers rolled their eyes, and considered it a plebeian cliché that indicated how brainless the working class were. But that one word makes Victorian England come alive to me.

I admit I hate "gifting" when "giving" is available, and I don't see the point of "trialing". "Mechanical doping," though, is an interesting metaphor for illegally powering a bike in competitive racing. And it's certainly quicker to say. Yes, it's a cliché, but while this sort of fakery is an issue, it's clear to speaker and hearer what it means.
 
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tiggs

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I'm just going to leave this here:

"I have never known this great Town without one or more Dunces of Figure, who had Credit enough to give Rise to some new Word, and propagate it in most Conversations, though it had neither Humor, nor Significancy. If it struck the present Taste, it was soon transferred into the Plays and current Scribbles of the Week, and became an Addition to our Language; while the Men of Wit and Learning, instead of early obviating such Corruptions, were too often seduced to imitate and comply with them."

Jonathan Swift, arguing that the English Language should be closed against further change, in 1712.
 

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Jonathan Swift, arguing that the English Language should be closed against further change, in 1712.

Jonathan Swift arguing in one of his satires that the English language should be closed against further change.

I'll see your Swift and raise you two Chaucer and one Caxton:

Chaucer said:
Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho
That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so.
— Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde Book II ll. 22-25--

Chaucer said:
And for ther is so gret diversite
In Englissh and in writyng of oure tonge,
So prey I God that non myswrite the,
Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge;
And red wherso thow be, or elles songe,
That thow be understonde, God I biseche!
— Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde V 1793-98

Caxton Eneydos prologue said:
For we Englysshe men ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is never stedfaste but ever waverynge, wexynge one season and waneth and dyscreaseth another season. And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a-nother, in so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a ship in Tamyse for to have sayled over the see into Zelande, and, for lacke of wynde, thei taryed atte Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them. And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren? Certaynly it is hard to playse every man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage.
William Caxton. Eneydos Prologue. See: British Library image.
 

tiggs

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Jonathan Swift arguing in one of his satires that the English language should be closed against further change.
Interesting. I wasn't aware that it was a satire.

The Chaucer and Caxton quotes are wonderful. I'm afraid I'll have to fold. You win :)
 

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Or just cock a snoot and cry "Walker!"
 
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