What has happened to the English Languge?

Do not worry, this is not going to be me going on with an 'Americans have ruined my language' rhetoric, no, I mean why have so many words and phrases gone out of use?

I am an Englishman who prides himself on his vocabulary and lack of use of modern slang, so a fair few Americans wouldn't find the way I speak odd given where I come from. I use the English stereotype staples of Bugger and Bloody hell. Oddly enough, those who live around me, friends, peers and the like, think me odd for using those words! It’s very bizarre.

Also, I use words that are seen as being frankly outlandish, disregarding the fact that just two hundred years ago these words were common place! Words such as Skulduggery, Flabbergasted, Tomfoolery, shenanigans ect ect. There are also many phrases I use as a matter of course which seem to throw many people throw a loop, a pair of prime examples being 'Fuck (or sod) that for a game of soldiers' and 'Gordon Bennet! (Said in the same way one would shout JESUS CHRIST)'.

Am I the only one who wishes for these words and phrases to return to the vernacular of the common man and woman?

 

I say flabbergasted usually.

 

I find it worrying that there are countless people here who hail from Europe and didn't learn English as their primary language, yet they type/speak it much better than I. I'm more of a vocal person myself. I believe I could outtalk almost anyone, but typing just requires effort.

 

Might as well wish for a return to KJV 1611 English. Words and phrases find their way out of a language for a reason.

 

What annoys me most is the retarded use of 'like' in sentences. Its come to the stage where I don't even care if I'm being rude to the person every time they say like I say like.

 

Languages evolve. Words get in and drop out of use.

What we may see as degeneration from a better language, is actually still a progress for said language. Just not in a preferred direction.

 

Of course it is outlandish, sirrah. In fact, it is proof of appreciation for complexity. To those ends, sir, I congratulate you on being a cut above for even raising the question or having the thought pass your mind.


I am American, myself. I can admire a British fellow who sounds as if he's talking from the 19th century. The accent is not required, of course.

((Oddly enough, Brits who come to America get all the chicks due to their accent...slang or not. The reverse is also true.))


I appreciate a man who chooses his words and takes pride in his vernacular. To wit, I present stylistic examples of George Bernard Shaw, Shakespeare, Socrates (via Xenophon & Plato), James Joyce, Whitman, and the many others. It is not the usage of 'common' words for their time that sets these men apart, but it is the intellect and style that pervades their wording and sentences. The heavy weight of thought and awareness drips in floods from their subordinating compounded masterpieces of narrative; a mural of imagery and connection that flows smoothly up your spine and into your frontal cortex sending a chilling air down your back as you begin to feel the caressing embrace of awareness one word at a time.


Communication offers an unparalleled opportunity for individualism and a chance to truly be unique: superior yet uncommon. For the man who chooses his words that have accuracy and precision and are outside the norm, it is proof of awareness and deliberate consciousness; wisdom perhaps. It is proof of intellect.



Therefore, in summation, one of the true few freedoms you have is to speak, and to choose how you speak. To surrender such precious individual freedom to a commonality of the times is a travesty. It is not those who speak as you describe who should be outlandish, it is those who care not, my clever man.


Truly, there is no substitute for original panache.

 

I have been called Simocrates many times by my peers.

 

So you have a flair for philosophical pandering? I'm afraid I don't understand the contraction fully. If so, perhaps you'd like to join me on Ventrilo for discussions of such? Maybe even talk Arcanum editing...or listen to rants about it.

 

Regarding the poll, if one is to take the word "strange" to mean "out of the norm" then speaking in such a way that sets one apart from his peers is certainly strange. I don't see why the result of the poll should be anything less than 100% in the affirmative.

Suffice it to say I express myself within The House differently than how I express myself outside of it. The nature of the online forum affords the luxury to consider and review my message that real-world communication often does not. Furthermore, being a community based upon a game set in a time period where expressing oneself in such a way is the dignified norm, expressing myself here in such a manner does not seem inappropriate.

I suggest that speaking the way you do in a general setting is inappropriate. Not to deny you the option of choosing your own style, but a speaker has a responsibility to his audience to adjust his speech so that his message is accessible to the majority.

I, too, appreciate deliberate self-expression for deliberate self-expression's sake. I place more value in the motive behind the expression and if I suspect that you are speaking highly to make your compatriots feel inferior, then I am inclined to employ baser vehicles in my expression and call you a douche bag.

 

I think It's all a load of pretentious shite.

 

(My apologies to everyone who already knows this stuff, but after stumbling across this discussion I felt the need to register a name and say it anyway.)

The English language is a highly changeable, adaptable language, mainly because that's how it managed to survive as a living tongue after the Norman invasion in 1066. After William the Conqueror earned his name (sometimes I wonder if he invaded just so people would stop calling him William the Bastard) Old English was relegated to being the language of the subjugated -- everyone in a real position of power spoke French and Latin.

Most of the time in situations like this the conquered people's language eventually dies out in favor of the one spoken by their conquerors (e.g. Siuslaw and Cayuse giving way to American English, Iberian and Etruscan to Latin, etc.). But in this case, English began to incorporate parts of French and Latin into itself, becoming Middle English (in all its various forms) by the 15th Century before eventually producing Elizabethan English and finally the modern vernacular that we all know and hate. (Come to think of it, I guess it's more correct to say that while English survived, it didn't exactly do so unscathed.)

The thing is, even though that particular battle for linguistic supremacy has been over and done with for centuries, since then English has never stopped reinventing itself, and a byproduct of that has been the bulldozing of perfectly serviceable words and phrases into the archaic landfill. It's a shame, but unless we decide at some point to put together an English equivalent of the French Academy it isn't something that's going to stop anytime soon.

However, in the last few hundred years that capacity for change has only really affected things like vocabulary and idioms. So yes, words are going to come and go, but people who insist on talking and writing in broken, ungrammatical English (and didn't grow up hearing and speaking a dialectal offshoot like AAVE) are just lazy jackasses, and if I could kill them and get away with it I would.

Don't even get me started on text speak and spell checkers.

 

Wat dun u like abt txt spk?

 

What RodneyDale said.

 

Aside from it reading like the writer was taught Roosevelt's simplified spelling by a freshly lobotomized man?

 

I am sure that that type of languaged was developed as a means of fast communication. Just because someone can't be bothered to write something properly, they are not always thick and stupid. Just lazy.

 

I always spend the extra two seconds writing the proper word and including punctuation in my text messages. Surprisingly no one has mistaken my texts for other meanings which tells me the little extra effort means people can interpret your words that little bit better.

 

What's with all these people joining just to complain about poor grammar?

 

Unfortunately, Australian English is so far removed from Queen's English that I think it's almost like a different dialect.

However, the children at school that I have been observing have developed two types of language - Queen's English for use in the classroom and in writing, and Australian English for conversation amongst their peers.

What these kids (thankfully) don't realise is that almost every generation below the baby-boomers all speak the same Australian English, so we can all understand each other relatively well.