This wouldn't have happened when I was young
Yesterday’s blog on annoying words and phrases provoked what marketing people call an overwhelming public response, which made me feel a lot better about my own petulance. Some people had clearly been fostering grievances against certain words for some time, and sounded quite emotional to be getting it off their chest. Almost every word in current English usage was criticised, including ‘usage’, but the most common targets were ‘guesstimate’ and ‘babes’ as a term of endearment.
A couple of people raised the interesting point that the language is constantly evolving, and yesterday’s ‘whateva’ and ‘chillax’ are tomorrow’s ‘I am generally considered well-spoken’. Stephen Fry said this only recently, and on the whole, anything Stephen Fry says is so enthusiastically greeted by the populace that he could quite easily persuade most of the UK to sell their houses and move into giant, hollowed-out jellies. And indeed my English teacher (Mr Clare) said the same thing in one of my first ever English lessons. ‘No native speaker of the language can ever make a mistake’. It’s a damn shame the same doesn’t apply to Maths, I thought.
I suppose what I’d say is: I’m happy with the idea that language is constantly changing in the hands of its practitioners, but it’s still OK to be riled by words purely because they’re bloody annoying. ‘Hubby’, for example, isn’t any sort of evolutionary step forward from ‘husband’ – it just suggests a trashy, tacky, throwaway attitude to something which should be important. Likewise ‘diva’: it’s not much pedantry that makes me suspicious of it, I don’t much care what it originally meant, I just hate the I’m-the-greatest-person-in-history worldview which it hints at.
In other words, my opposition to some words is not really an academic stance. It’s more that they just really piss me off. In the same way as I recognise intellectually that Davina McCall is probably thoroughly nice, but she sort of makes me shiver a bit.
I do worry a bit, though, that by the time I’m at the other end of my thirties (the period which this blog is meant to commit to posterity), I’ll have become the sort of person who complains about pretty much everything which is not exactly the same as it was in 1985. So I’m going to write myself a few little reminders against pointless nostalgia and reactionary impulses, which I can come back to if I sense I’m becoming a prick in, say, 2016.
- There has always been great music and shit music. You may well say nobody these days (2016) is as good as Arcade Fire used to be, but don’t forget the same period produced the Pussycat Dolls.
- Every time a new gadget comes out, like the iPhone, or iPod, or everything back as far as the pencil sharpener, you take the piss out of it. Then a year later, you realise it’s actually great, and get one.
- You claim not to be able to understand ‘young people’ these days, but even in 2010, you were baffled by this craze for pictures of cats talking in text-speak.
- Nostalgia always preserves the highlights of life. It edits out the bits where your toe hurt or your flies were undone for the whole of your solo in the carol service.
- Yes, old football grounds were nicer than these soulless new-builds, but on the other hand, people used to piss in each other’s pockets and sometimes a stand would collapse and everyone would die.
- You’re normally wrong, anyway, Mark. So just shut up and drink your wine. Or whatever it is these days. SpaceWine.
Posted by Knox on May 1, 2011
I’ve never really got the whole Arcade Fire thing. Someone once gave me one of their albums – I listened to it, but still didn’t really get it. Sorry…
I definitely agree about the Pussycat Dolls, though (i will not rant, just leave it at this: feminists my arse!)
Posted by Richie on February 26, 2010
Do you know who is directly responsible for the career of Davina McCall? Eric Clapton! THAT made me shiver a bit!
Posted by Cat :) on February 23, 2010
I’m glad I read this as I’m going into University this year and I’m already getting a lot of nostalgia and getting upset about drifting from some of my friends. But reading this in a way has kinda let me realise that there will be good times wherever I go. Because there were shit ones back then too
I’m really needing all the support I can find for myself right now. Uni is so big!
Posted by Rachael on February 22, 2010
although i’m sure you’re right about all the others, soul-less is the last word i would use to describe the Emirates stadium.
Posted by Carey on February 22, 2010
This blog entry made me want jelly.
I do have to say I enjoy browsing lolcats (actually I think they’re probably American so maybe it’s lolcatz?!) but find ‘txtspeak’ very annoying. Then I find myself actually saying ‘lol’ instead of laughing and using expressions such as ‘OMGoggles’ and I feel very ashamed.
Posted by Stephen on February 22, 2010
I also used to fantasise about native speakers of Maths. When you’re stuck in French or German, you can theoretically ask a French or a German person and if they say “what we would say in that situation is ‘XXXXXXXXXX’” then that’s the final word, because after all, they are the final arbiters of French / German. So I used to daydream about people from the planet Maths, for whom Maths was their native language, who would be able to sort stuff out like “Area of a circle? Yeah, we used to say ‘Pi-r-squared’, but now it’s just 10*r. Maths is a constantly evolving thing, and there’s no point fighting it.”
Posted by Meg on February 22, 2010
I almost wrote out the whole of last week’s lecture from my linguistics class about how there are no proper or improper words or grammar, there’s just what people say and don’t say. But then I decided to spare you because it was getting pretty long.
I will say, however, that lolcat is different than textspeak. #themoreyouknow.
Posted by Simone on February 21, 2010
Native speakers of… Maths?
Posted by Elizabeth on February 21, 2010
The slang trend of words to become their own antonym is as old as the hills. At the very least it’s as old as Michael Jackson’s “Bad.” I think it’s sweet when I hear lids calls something “sick” and I’ve caught myself doing so on rare occasions (much to the confusion of my late 20-something friends).
The one that turns me intoa grumpy old lady complaining about kids today is the overuse of “Diva.” Being a diva used to mean something, it was a title a singer earned after decades of hard work and and all-consuming commitment to her art. It was a sign that if that woman wanted to have a bit of a fit because the pillows in her dressing room contained stuffing that made her throat itchy, well fair enough she’d earned it. Beyonce is a lovely girl who sings very well, but she’s at least a decade away from “diva.” And that’s someone who has actually come close to earning it, as opposed to some artless twat in a department store making a clerk’s day that much harder. This may be the longest comment to a blog I’ve ever written. My point is I tried but can’t write a note to my older self that there was a time when I too was ok with taking a word that once meant something and rendering it meaningless.
Posted by Phill Sacre on February 21, 2010
My pet peeve re: language is… well, there are several. Mostly it’s people not actually bothering to learn the difference between ‘compliment’ and ‘complement’, or spelling ridiculous as ‘rediculous’, or something like that.
Something someone said reminded me of another ‘usage’ which is disappearing though – bear with me a moment. People often write that ‘bare’ with me. Perhaps the future of the English language means that we’re going to turn into a population of nudists… can’t see that ever happening. Not in England. “What, with this weather?”
Posted by Paul Riley on February 21, 2010
I’m ok with the idea of language evolving, as long as it’s ok to beat someone to death with a stick for using truly irritating phrases, otherwise it’s not evolution (survival of the fittest) at all. While we’re at it, can we also beat people to death for descibing themselves as random or bubbly, not for the good of the language, just because.
Posted by Tom Beasley on February 21, 2010
The thought of language evolving into the lazy, slang-riddled mess that people of my age talk is quite a terrifying thought to be honest.
Some of the words that have appeared are utterly terrible re-defined versions of current words. A prime example is “bare” to mean “lots of” which really bugs me. Then there is my all-time favourite awful word to be used by teens: “sick”. It now means “very good”, when only a few years ago, it was meaning “absolutely terrible or wrong in the head”. How a word can turn into its own antonym in the space of a few years, I absolutely do not know.
Posted by Maddie on February 21, 2010
In the future, you will be required to try to know and understand what the young people are up to, as your human will be one of them.
Also, when remembering some of the tragedies today’s music industry has produced, please don’t forget Jedward. Or, if the future proves to be somekind of utopia…. Jedward (R.I.P).
Posted by Emma on February 21, 2010
I CAN’T WAIT FOR ARCADE FIRE’S NEW ALBUM.
Also you’re wrong, Tunnels is a modicum better than Laika.
Posted by Kate on February 21, 2010
Be thankful that some things will never change….
. Transport will always have its pitfalls – Public transport will be shit and the car battery will always die at the most inopportune moment
. The lightbulb will always die in the middle of the night when you need a wee
Oh these are all negative, well maybe an evolving language however, annoying (just remember you don’t HAVE to use it, no-one id holding a gun to your head) may be a positive in the long run.
May I add to yesterday’s list of annoyances the use of off/going. That really grates on me
Posted by Daniel on February 21, 2010
” Every time a new gadget comes out, like the iPhone, or iPod, or everything back as far as the pencil sharpener, you take the piss out of it. Then a year later, you realise it’s actually great, and get one. ”
Absolutely. Glad I’m not the only one whose irrational hatred of anything new blossoms to love in a years time, as it did with the iPhone. Dear God, please don’t let it happen with 3D glasses in cinemas though…
Posted by Daniel on February 21, 2010
” Every time a new gadget comes out, like the iPhone, or iPod, or everything back as far as the pencil sharpener, you take the piss out of it. Then a year later, you realise it’s actually great, and get one. ”
Absolutely. Glad I’m not the only one whose irrational hatred of anything new blossoms to love in a years time, as it did with the iPhone. Dear God, please don’t let it happen with 3D galsses in cienams though…
Posted by Misha on February 21, 2010
Just look at it this way, in 100 years the xfactor will be historic because of it’s sheer presence today in culture, Shakespeare was just entertainment once and language too will change.
It’s harder to learn to read middle English than French (in my experience) and one day people will struggle to read things like this. Weird eh?
I’m sure spacewine will be in fashion bythen.
Posted by Sam on February 21, 2010
We all know that there won’t be any drinkable SpaceWine at 2016, it needs time to age and mature.
Honestly Mark, you’re not going to get any of that cheap old supermarket SpacePlonk are you?