Word Surge

That was well good!

(sorry - that's my pet one atm).

J x

Yes, I'm across this one.

Boop boop-a-doop and hot cha, daddy-oh. Split your mivvi with the kids or take a croc-a-hike, lumpenproletariat-oh.

My current pet hate is 'I'm loving this' or 'we're loving this'.

Jeez...

Grrrrrrrrrr

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'Up close and personal' is starting to annoy me.

'I'm doing good' has finished annoying me. Come quick, I'm screaming loud. Never use an adverb where an adjective will do perfect.

I have to confess Jennifer, that 'well good' never really bothered me. In fact, 'well' anything has been acceptable since John the Baptist baptised Jesus in the Jordan and God said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased".

However, the excessive use of the word 'like' and the phrase 'kind of' necessitates the reintroduction of village stocks.

jude

whatever..........

When shopping and have come to the end of the transaction the counter assistant hands me my purchase and receipt, smiles and says " there you go" ???

There's a book called 'Watching the English' that is very funny when it looks at the interactions between barkeep and customer and checkout person and customer and the over-use of 'thank you'. Very funny reading, innit!

J x

Another thing that makes me want to pull my hair out is when someone is saying something that involves the letter 'H' and they pronounce it Haitch. Is it me? I was always under the impression it's spelled Aitch. Surely you can't put a letter were there isn't one, it's not like dropping the H when its silent as in Honour or Hour. Don't get me started this is a favourite hobby horse of mine (-;

Thinking of these specific examples - I HATE when I hear such things referred to as 'pacific'. Then there's 'parsay' instead of 'per se'.

Goodness, that reminds me, we've been here before. I thought I was having an odd sensation of déjà vu!

http://www.abctales.com/node/95915

http://new.abctales.com/node/199533

jude

déjà lu

Talking of which, don't you hate it when you hear "déjà vu all over again?"

I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.

jude

Jude,
You frame an interesting topic. The evolution of language fascinates me. The same language that crafted Beowulf,spawned Hamlet, rhyming cockney and later "Valley speak" in California. And at the time it was used, most folks understood the medium. It gives one pause to consider the whole notion of language. Throw in "Body English" and you have enough material to spoof for years.
Deja Vu all over again is a favorite tongue in cheek poke at an old American baseball player named Yogi Berrra, who used and abused the verbal idiom when expressing himself often with comical results.
In the 1940's, there was an urchin in a film series, The Dead End Gang, who used words way over his depth linguistically. You can see this same comical effect in many political speeches today.
In the movie "Sophie's Choice," they had great fun with immigrants misstating English idioms with often humerous results. Any one who has ever tried to speak in a second language smiles in recognition at the difficulty.
Trying to express oneself in a clear and concise manner, on subjects that are complex, is not s easy as it looks. Throw in even more confusion with the new spelling forms, arising from computer shortened acronyms, and it gets really confusing.
We are in substance what we sound like to strangers. No wonder the world is a confusing place.
J.X.M

I thought I had written something on this subject .

The Babel of Speech”

A Frenzied exchange of conflicitng ideas
Inquisitive eyes seeking reassurance
Do words mean what they appear to mean?
Or assume the meaning we want them to?

The distortion of intent solidifies in sound.
Variations of theme are lost on the listener.
Speaking of the complexities of ideas
becomes an exercise in verbal futility.

The garble of resonance we identify as speech
is heard and most commonly understood
at a level of the most mundane and mean,
like the frenzied grunting of apes in a cage.

We are a species of mutes who slowly evolved
using speech from countless towers of babel,
finding that perception lies in the ken of the listener
And he isn’t listening, or hears what he wants.

-30-

J.X.M

I see nothing wrong with mixing it up a bit, throwing in a few colloquialisms, playing with words etc. Language is a living thing. It's a shame when it degenerates though IMO.

I think it was our MacJoyce who lamented the loss of cockney to what he described as "a new bastard hybrid accent which mimics Jamaican. The result is a revolting Ali G twang that sounds nothing like Cockney or Jamaican and is an insult to both" and went on to say this is due to "braindead f*****g Wiggers who'd rather talk like some kind of joke rapper than like their parents or grandparents."

This accent is officially known as 'multicultural English' or more commonly 'Jafaican' but the experts disagree with Mac in that far from being the product of kids trying to be cool it is due to immigration and change in social mix. According to a Ms Fox, researcher at Lancaster Uni, "What has emerged is a distinctive inner-London patois which borrows heavily from Jamaican creole, lifting some words unchanged. But it has been influenced by other speech patterns mainly Bangladeshi and West African, with a little South American and Arab thrown in."

Personally, I find it utterly ghastly and it is the number one reason I would not send my children to a London state school.

jude

... I have also been wondering whether the excessive use of the word 'like' and the phrase 'kind of' reflects ambivalence in today's young. I don't agree with many of my colleagues who believe generation Y is commitment-phobic but I have heard presentations given in a professional environement where the speaker has said :

" this project is based on like a radical idea: that God calls us to kind of live simply. It's like a challenge to reflect and take action in order to work for justice, and to kind of be happier in ourselves . It's kind of about seeking what we need rather than grasping for more."

All those 'like's and 'kind of's demonstrate a lack of confidence and commitment in what is being said, and goes beyond a mere linguistic trend.

jude

Very good point poetjude. It's as if (like?) they don't want to commit to anything too specific.

Oddly enough, I've often thought the same about the 'thraying stains' pronunciation. It's kind of self-effacing, like they don't kind of want to pronounce the words correctly in case it sounds too kind of forceful and committed, like.

I'm going to nominate 'my comfort zone' as a hate phrase.

Maybe everybody wants to be normal? Nobody wants to be too posh or clever.

I knew that was you tinkering with the code BTW.

"What has emerged is a distinctive inner-London patois which borrows heavily from Jamaican creole, lifting some words unchanged. But it has been influenced by other speech patterns mainly Bangladeshi and West African, with a little South American and Arab thrown in."

This explanation for the emergence of fuckwit-wiggerspeak doesn't convince me, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I don't see or hear how there's any Bangladeshi influence in it at all, let alone South American or Arab. How many South American or Arab kids are there in London, compared to, say, Pakistanis or Indians?

Secondly, it's not just an "inner-London patois". You can hear it all over the metropolis, out into the suburbs and even into the Home Counties. You hear it in places like Romford, which are almost entirely white.

So, why?? Why oh why, in Christ's name, do people have this shitty accent??

I don't know but I think it's here to stay. I was watching a London Tonight piece a few months ago about the new library and they interviewed a 10 year old school girl who looked to me like a Serbian Muslim and to hear her talking in this ridiculous Jafaican accent filled me with pity.

The problem is also that teachers are taught not to correct 'dialect' but this accent severely compromises employment chances.

jude

Yeah, I've heard Albanians using it, it's very sad.

I think it's right that teachers shouldn't correct dialect, but this one should be an exception. It's not a proper, natural, British accent, so British people should not be speaking in this way.

Still, what do I know, I'm just another white Cockney Nazi. I should just learn to accept the government line and bourgeois-liberal line that anything 'multicultural' is automatically 'good'.

My brother's wife is Jamaican and she finds it funny too. But she can speak the real thing, and has a good excuse!

Safe, man. You lookin buff in dem low batties. Dey's sick, man. Me? I'm just jammin wid me bruds. Dis my yard, innit? Is nang, you get me? No? What ends you from then?

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Well, that kind of slang is around but not as prevalent as a sort of Jafaican twang on ordinary English. Such as the word 'like' which a speaker of Estuary English would say 'liyke', a cockney would say 'loike' (both with short vowels) but inner city children now say 'laahk' with a very long vowel reminiscent of patois.

I think Mac was right in that it started as imitation of crap rap but it has now infected schools where most children (especially if their own parents don't speak English) pick up their accents.

jude

Cockneys say 'liyke' as well as the Estuarians. 'Loike' sounds more to me like Brummie or West Country. But yes, the Jafaican is 'laahk', as in "And I was laahk, nar man, believe, dat is propar wrong, and e was laahk, nar blood, u get me? etc etc etc"...

Incidentally, that is my pet word-usage hate, saying "I was like" instead of "I said". You hear it all the bloody time. It's even more annoying than saying 'way' instead of 'far'. They are both revolting Americanisms that have entered this country through TV, like the dreaded question intonation? When you end a sentence with the voice going up, as though it's a question?

Basically, it's partly Jafaican, partly text-speak, and partly Americanisms that are killing the English language. Personally, I'm willing to see a ban on all American TV programmes in this country, apart from the Simpsons and Family Guy.

I'm not sure why it is that I'm not Jafaican. I went to school in Walthamstow in East London in the 80s and 90s, where a lot of the kids had this revolting accent. I don't remember making a conscious decision to talk like my parents rather than like my schoolmates. Maybe I just instinctually knew that my parents had the much better accent.

The hell you say!
At the end of the day
Get off of my back
Cut me some slack
Stay outa my face
Get off of my case
Have a nice day
When push come to shove
The bigger picture

Go figure
Back atcha
Thinking outside the box
And pushing the envelope

all Americanisms and modern day sound bites that have me gnashing my teeth, but then I am just a grumpy old woman.. To coin a phrase. (-;

"I was like" instead of "I said" is very annoying and very wrong but I think that is clear to the majority of people. But the insidious 'way too' instead of 'far too' has achieved acceptance by stealth across all British accents.

I heard a newspiece and one of those socialite Geldof girls was being interviewed and her speech was horrific; full of 'way too's and superflous 'like's . I was shocked that this individual is the product of an expensive private school. I would complain to the school if that's the best they could come up with for 15k a year.

jude

'Very unique'....makes me squirm.

Jude said...

"...'well good' never really bothered me. In fact, 'well' anything has been acceptable since John the Baptist baptised Jesus in the Jordan and God said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased".

Cheers, Jude! Made me laugh mightily - which is a feat as I'm currently NICOTINE DEPRIVED!!!! (Day three and counting).

I can't stand - "Take care of you" ughhhh, yuck, splutter...

~
www.fabulousmother.co.uk

Well done. The first week is hard. But after 2 and a half years off the cigs, I feel equipped to say it is possible and definitely worth it!

jude

You and me Lou - today marks the end of week three. A very healthy couple of weeks tramping about the Highlands have helped and I only think about fags around twenty times a day now.

Keep at it!

Ah good going, Tony. I'll bring the peanuts to the pub next time. I'm on about thirty packets of peanuts a day now...

~
www.fabulousmother.co.uk

I'm off the cigarettes 21 years now, now for the booze. Back to the annoying phrases or pronunciations. "Are you coming back to mine?" Inserting an aitch into street as in shtreet or shtrings, whatevva, fink, fawt route pronounced as rowt and yes I heard Beeb newsreader pronounce it like that, it's just so slackjawed!!!!!!!!!! Stop it! Mind you there is one benefit at least we can take the high ground.

I wonder how long it will be before we start saying 'are we done here?' Rather than 'are we finished?'

Luckily we don't know how many people here think the eighth letter of the alphabet is called 'haitch'. It was even a question on University Challenge a while back, so presumably school leavers aren't expected to know such complicated things! It's 'aitch' folks, unless you're Irish or thick.

And how long will it be before we say 'can I get' instead of 'may I have'? Or am I already too late with that one?

and what about "What up" instead of "is something wrong?"

deja who?

Gloomy today.

Glad you didn't say Irish AND thick FTSE. :(

The Irish are lovely, so long as they don't say haitch! But I'm in a bad mood today so I'll stop posting before I offend anybody else. :)

Well, 'ave an 'appy evening 'ope you enjoy ;)

I used to live with an Irish woman one of the most fearsomely intelligent people I've ever met. I had to accept that she pronounced aitch as Haitch and film as fillum.

I hate people who write 'should of' instead of 'should have'. They are untermenschen.

Most people say 'should've' in informal speech, which is presumably where the confusion arises.

How about 'if I were you' vs. 'if I was you'? I don't know anybody who is absolutely consistent in their use of the 'were' subjunctive. I'm not myself. Is it a goner?

Sounds a bit posh to me FTSE.

As far as the upward intonation thing goes... We're waaaay too late People and I'm well depressed. Cos I was like listening to my 14-year-old on the phone and she was like, 'hi Auntie Jules, well I went to the shops? and bought these legwarmers?'

We is well doomed.

~
www.fabulousmother.co.uk

The way that my teenage daughter uses the phrase;

'He goes' and 'She goes' when she really means 'He said' and 'she said'....lost cause!

I'm glad you went that, I was about to go it myself. :)

'There's lots of reasons' makes my teeth fester, especially when uttered by BBC news readers. Oh and another one - he's six foot one - no the last time I looked six was a plural and so must be six feet one.

Whatever.

I purchased at the weekend a book published in 1911 by a Prof. Duncan entitled "How to Speak English Correctly".

I was pleased to note 75% of the common errors cited are not ones I make, another 15% are words or phrases that have dated and are not used. Of the 10% errors I do make, this was due to me being taught incorrectly. For example, I grew up surrounded by people pronouncing mischievous “mischievious so I picked up the error because I didn’t know any better.

Apparently leisure is pronounced ‘lee-sure’ but I’m not sure I can bring myself to do this.

Apparently heinous is in fact pronounced ‘hay-nous’ so the it isn’t an exception to the I before E rule.

The funniest passage in the book went something like this, “These errors are due to cockneyism which should not be adopted by the sons of Abraham in this country. It is certainly not the manner in which a Christian should speak …”

What gets my spleen festering is 'I was speaking with someone' no you were talking to someone. If I said I was in conversation to someone I would fully expect TJ here with a fully armed baseball racquet.

Oh and the American version of mirror as in Tracy Austin at Wimbledon 'players have to look at themselves in the meer.'

Ah well, at least Michael Jackson isn't dead.

That's her off of the telly - yuk

jude he is talking bollocks! pay no attention. it is not lee-sure, nor is it hay-nous. It never has been either.

Like the funny passage though : )

Tracy Austin at Wimbledon: 'she's making too many airs.'

Here it is in the natural:

"This is decided, unmitigated cockneyism, having its parallel in nothing except the broken English of the sons of Abraham; and to adopt it in conversation is certainly not speaking like a Christian."

Here are a few other gems:

" Every one who has learned the rudiment of written language can read, but very few indeed, even of those who are called highly educated, can read well. We find a greater number of good talkers than good readers in society, rare as the former confessedly are; and where you can find ten ladies who can perform very satisfactorily on the piano, scarcely a single tolerable reader can be discovered ..."

"Our mother tongue - the strong, copious flexible Anglo-Saxon - is our richest inheritence. We have reason to be proud of it, and ought to labour with the greatest assiduity to perfect ourselves in its use."

Apparently, me using this manual will help me "avoid the gross errors which mar the speech of many people, and to use the noble English tongue with correctness and elegance."
jude

Ah, but there is a certain piquancy in the Vulgar Tongue C1811

http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/a/
:-))

He has a point about not being able to read well. In my yoof I read a lot of sci-fi and I got into the habit of effectively speed reading - I could finish several books in a day. When I turned my attention to literature with more substance I had to re-train myself so that I could read more slowly and take everything in. It was nowhere near as easy as you might think and took me several months.

Do people read well? Do they understand what they read? Do they remember what they've read? Can they detach themselves from the mechanical activity of moving eyes across page and be absorbed in the story without being aware that they are reading? For most people, probably not.

Talking of Wimbledon, what is this 'physicality' that the commentators were talking about during the Murray/Wawrinka match?

To answer FTSE 100's question:-
Do people read well? Do they understand what they read? Do they remember what they've read? Can they detach themselves from the mechanical activity of moving eyes across page and be absorbed in the story without being aware that they are reading? For most people, probably not.

I can and do often, If I am reading a certain author for instance I more often than not become so caught up and involved I am physically transported and become part of the very fabric of the story, I hear nothing, see nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing. My husband has often had to shake me back and then he says I look at him as though he is a stranger. Yes, I know I'm weird! (:

I know exactly what you mean Val. My wife declares that I can actually converse with her when reading but that my answers make absolutely no sense and could be attributed to a conversation held earlier; even days before hand. I never have any recollection of answering her at all...and you thought YOU were weird!
I read voraciously (never less than 3 books a week), a habit that I have from childhood. I can read anywhere and no amount of noise, light or bombs going off bothers me in the slightest.
I have one unbreakable rule though; I cannot read more than one book at a time. Am I unusual in this? My son, who is in college can become immersed in up to three books at a time; I find this unbelievable. I have given up on books in the past and gone on to read something else instead but could not read more than one simultaneously.
How do others feel about this; am I the only one with this limited ability?
Anyway, a lot of kids today do not read enough - in my humble opinion but then, there are a lot more distractions around now than when I was growing up. I do think it is a shame though as there seems to be so many wonderful books and writers for children out there now.

Whether I can read more than one book at a time depends on how much I'm enjoying it. Some books quickly become loo books, to be placed on a shelf in the bog and read when I'm otherwise engaged, if you catch my drift. But if I'm really enjoying a book I don't want to read anything else.

I agree - if the book is captivating enough, I'll read that alone and be totally absorbed. However, if it's a little boring, I'll pick another up and it'll take me ages to finish. Sometimes I don't even bother. I think writing style is often just as important if not more so than storyline - shocking though it is, I could not get through 1984 - it was so putdownable. Jilly Cooper's horsey tales? Have kept me up into the early hours!

I'm like Val and Chris - once 'in a book', I can be so wrapped up in it that I'm not 'here'!

I truly believe that the more you read, the more your own use of language, spelling, grammar, punctuation etc will improve! And Chris is right - the children/teen market has been booming over recent years - a certain JK helping rekindle it!

J x

I remember I was given Jane Eyre to read when I was nine years old. Woolworths used to do a Half crown each collection of classics and I was given it for my birthday. It took me ages just to get past the first page, not because I didn't understand it but because the words Charlotte Bronte used so enchanted me I just wanted to keep them on my tongue for as long as I could. Suddenly I realised I would have plenty more to enjoy by getting past that first page. I remember the feelings as though it were yesterday. I have tried to instill the same love of reading into my children and Grandchildren, but sadly to no avail, they would rather watch Hollywood's version of the classics which is a shame. David Lean's version of Great Expectations was marvelous but never one mention of Orlick the attacker of Mrs Gargery,no proper explanation of Miss Havershams plight, or Estella's parentage. So many wonderful details left out. What a lot of pure pleasure people miss by not reading.

I think Prof. Duncan was refering to intonation etc. when reading aloud.

Still, I agree with the points made here about reading well and widely.

I agree with Val with regard to the 'movies'. I don't think that I have ever seen a film that compared favourably to the book. The Godfather was perhaps the closest.
I read all the Harry Potter books myself as my younger son finished them and was completely enthralled.
I sometimes think the people who write for kids; JK, P.Pullman, etcetera have contained a certain understanding and simplicity of style and tone that writers of more mature targeted audience have lost a little. Of those that I have read - and I have read a lot - they seem to realize that the story is the principle element and not how beautiful it is.
I know; that's a very general statement but it's only my view.

Kids get all the best stories but, if you buy a stack of weenyteen books at random, you'll find they also get some of the worst!

I hope I'm never downwind of your drift especially if you're on the bog FTSE100.

Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood. All were superior (IMO) to the books they're based on.

Not to mention Persepolis, Dark Knight, Sin City, V For Vendetta, A History of Violence (bit of a cheat, but were inspired by Graphic Novels)

Indeed FTSE, I'd have to say Twilight is some of the most disgustingly popular crap on the market since Ann Rice started writing.

I've started reading alot during my lunch breaks and when I get home from work, having seen the film Persepolis I decided to read the Graphic Novel it's based upon., it's utterly fantastic. Much the same as Fun Home and Maus (only graphic novel to win a pulitzer)