English is an interesting language and not only that, it’s constantly evovling, which adds to it’s interesting-ness (however making things a tad more confusing).  Words aren’t the same as they used to be, they change drastically responding fluidly to modern connotation. Such evolution and changes are barely noticed by the average speaker, it’s far too subtle for that.  I’m not referring to slang here, that’s a whole other kettle of fish, yo.  Okay, I guess I’m talking a little bit about slang, but not in the Snoop-Dogg-adds-”izzle’s”  kind of way, but modern adapations of things kind of way.

I shall now highlight some examples to clarify what the heck I’m going on about.

Retarded

Today, this is a pejorative term for mentally handicapped individuals, though, at one time the politically correct one, imagine that.  More commonly though, it’s used to reference how someone of “normal” mental faculties are acting like said mentally handicapped individuals.

Actually “retarded” isn’t  a medical term in the slightest, not even in a layman’s world.  It means:

to make slow; delay the development or progress of (anaction, process, etc.); hinder or impede.

Someone who is mentally handicapped might actually be so due to retarded development in their brain.  Hence…

Though no one uses it like this anymore.   I guess it carries too much controversy.

Layman

(since it’s come up already, might as well dive in)

These days we use this when advising someone smarter than ourselves to talk slower and use smaller words.  AKA “In layman’s terms.”

Now meaning someone not part of a given profession, the word has it’s origins in the church.  A “layman” refers to:

a person who is not a member of the clergy; one of the laity.

So most basically, someone who isn’t a priest.  Commonly, this was someone who would often participate in the liturgy, but didn’t have the special privileges awarded to one who is ordained.  Someone from the congregation, perhaps.  They could serve communion but not bless the bread and wine.

Grotesque

Ew.  Yucky.  Disgusting.  Strange. Vulgar.  Usually said by pretentious people.  Or those who want to sound more intelligent.

In actuality, being “grotesque” has nothing to do with being “gross,”  to which it seems to be interchangeable.

Originally it referred to a particular style of exaggerated Roman art, but perhaps we don’t have to quite that far on this definition.  The word is still fairly common in the arts world, such as theatre or visual art.   “Grotesque” is intended to inspire a feeling of the bizarre.  Highly exaggerated figures and characters might evoke this feeling.  Possibly defined as:

— adj
1.	strangely or fantastically distorted; bizarre: a grotesquereflection in the mirror
2.	of or characteristic of the grotesque in art
3.	absurdly incongruous; in a ludicrous context: a grotesque turnof phrase

I can think of many other words like, but I think you get the point for now.

I guess I don’t really have any analysis of the above terms.  I just think it’s a cool thing that has happened.  And something largely taken for granted.
Tata for now, gentle readers

Tags: English, evolution of english, grotesque, layman, retarded

The English language has been on the decline for many years now, specifically the written.  For something that was really only standardized within the last few hundred years, it has gone out the window pretty quickly. ¹  I blame technology.  Or perhaps the fast-paced, instant gratification, impatient  world we live in today.  Or perhaps both.

Email started it, I suppose.  With it’s instantness and it’s efficiency.  In the beginning, as per human nature, it took the form of correspondence that we as a society were familiar with.  Letter writing.  It was like sending a letter, it only got there two days earlier than before.

Dear Mr. York,

It has been far too long since we have seen each other.  We should really be better about getting together on a regular basis.  Let’s stay in touch and perhaps meet up for a meet later this month.

Have your secretary get in touch with mine.  They’ll set a time and place.

Sincerely,

Mr. Smith

Formal letter writing quickly became the thing of the past when it was so much easier to type a memo without a stuffy greeting and much faster without worrying about proper capitalization or punctuation.

paul

let’s grab a drink. you free friday

j

Anything semblance of the afore mentioned proper capitalization and punctuation went out the window with the rise of instant messaging.  It was a necessity at this point.  In order to keep the flow and timing of a semi-normal conversation, typing/spelling/words had to be has quick and easy as possible.  Hence the birth of LOL. ²

pauleewifpashun4pottery hey. sup?

jdawg just watchin you’ve got mail. you?

pauleewifpashun4pottery i love that movie

pauleewifpashun4pottery wanna grab a drink later this week?

jdawg me too.

jdawg yeah, that’d be great.

And before I continue my diatribe, I must take time to make this little side note.  In elementary school, like many others of that day, I had to take a typing class from day one.  ³ It’s where I learned my home row keys and also where I learned that I really liked to press buttons.  However, it wasn’t until AOL/AIM came along that I my typing skills really started to sore.  Also, my ability to carry on two strands of thought in one conversation window without losing track.  Speaking of, I should get back to my topic.

Apparently the loss capitalization and punctuation was only the tip of a deep and expansive iceberg of illiteracy.  One day, some dude (I presume dude, but I also presume Japanese, but that’s because I’m inherently naive) came up with the idea of the text message, aka the short message or the SMS.  This was an amazing thing because when a thought didn’t warrant a full conversation, one could just send it in a text.  Though sadly, there was one small problem.  There are twenty six letters in the English language, plus silly little things like punctuation and spaces between words.  There are ten numeric keys on the standard phone.  Before some second dude invented predictive text, typing out a full sentence, God forbid two, became quite the hassle. Further shorthand was required.

u want to meet 4 drinks?

Of course, for some reason known only to the former planet Pluto, this started a whole new spelling trend where things were spelled incorrectly even when they didn’t make the word any shorter or efficient. IE, the Z in place of the S trend.  Text messages, combined with emailing and instant messaging, birthed a whole new English in the developing youth.  A horrible, shameful one.  Not to mention one that I find more difficult to understand than just typing out the words.  Large chunks of text all over the internet started to look like this.

i have inzane dreamz. dreamz wher i crawl in2 a big pot of cawfee and swim around 4 dayz.

also i tink mark is sooooooooooooo kewl

And then one day, everyone had a blog, not just limited to those people who had something to say.  Thoughts of what people did in their day to day life and who they were warring with at school flooded the internet.

Which brings us to Twitter.  Twitter, who’s only purpose that I can see, is to become friends with celebrities.  For those outside the loop, Twitter is the site where users can log on to update their thoughts or whatever, but are limited to doing so in 140 characters.  Now, not only can we find out what you had for lunch or what poster you just bought, but we can do it from our telephones or computers while checking what everyone else had for lunch or what poster THEY bought all in the same place quickly and painlessly.

paulee evrybdy shud cum 2 #Cheers 4 drinks! its @jdawg going away prty. 530 cnr park & main. c u ther!

And that is what sealed the deal.  That killed the English language and spelling and grammar forever.  I fear that there is no turning back now.  Tomorrow it will only be something else.  Some shorthand of shorthand that will make thinking minimal and our eyes melt.

I miss words.  I like how they sound and how they look and how they feel being typed out on the keyboard.  Admittedly, I’m  a child of the internet who is terrified of talking on the phone and prefers to communicate via email or text.  This perhaps is another downfall of the technology, the lack of intimacy and fear of close communication, but I know I can’t try to stop progress or really even blame it for our problems.  I just miss words.  And sentences.  And handwritten notes.  And reading things that are created to make you think instead of the opposite.

_________

Tags: AIM, email, English, Grammar, instant messaging, language, SMS, Spelling, technology, text messaging, twitter, words, Writing