BBO Discussion Forums: For your, like, edification - BBO Discussion Forums

Jump to content

Page 1 of 1
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

For your, like, edification

#1 User is offline   y66 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 6,496
  • Joined: 2006-February-24

Posted 2014-April-06, 17:05

From Like, Degrading the Language? No Way by John McWhorter:

Quote

If there is one thing that unites Americans of all stripes, it is the belief that, whatever progress our country might be making, we are moving backward on language. Just look at the crusty discourse level of comments sections and the recreational choppiness of text messages and hit pop songs.

However, amid what often seems like the slack-jawed devolution of a once-mighty language, we can find evidence for, of all things, a growing sophistication.

Yes, sophistication — even in the likes of, well, “like,” used so prolifically by people under a certain age. We associate it with ingrained hesitation, a fear of venturing a definite statement. Yet the hesitation can be seen less as a matter of confidence than one of consideration.

“Like” often functions to acknowledge objection while underlining one’s own point. To say, “This is, like, the only way to make it work,” is to implicitly recognize that this news may be unwelcome to the hearer, and to soften the blow by offering one’s suggestion discreetly swathed in a garb of hypothetical-ness.

“Like, the only way to do it” operates on the same principle as other expressions, such as making a request with the phrasing, “If you could open the door ...” — hypothetical, when what you intend is quite concrete. “Like” can seem somehow sloppier, but only because youth and novelty always have a way of seeming sloppy.

What’s actually happening is that casual American speech is, in its “like” fetish, more polite than it was before. Sooner than we know it, the people using “like” this way will be on walkers, and all will be right with the world.

Totally.
If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
0

#2 User is offline   kenberg 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 11,052
  • Joined: 2004-September-22
  • Location:Northern Maryland

Posted 2014-April-06, 17:19

View Posty66, on 2014-April-06, 17:05, said:

From Like, Degrading the Language? No Way by John McWhorter:


Totally.


Like he sayin totally but I'm like thinkin no way dude but you got your space and I got mine man so I say if that's what floats your boat, dig it, I'm cool.
Ken
2

#3 User is offline   Chas_P 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,511
  • Joined: 2008-September-03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Gainesville, GA USA

Posted 2014-April-06, 17:48

View Postkenberg, on 2014-April-06, 17:19, said:

Like he sayin totally but I'm like thinkin no way dude but you got your space and I got mine man so I say if that's what floats your boat, dig it, I'm cool.


Yeah, man. I know what you be sayin'. Hey!
0

#4 User is offline   ArtK78 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 7,786
  • Joined: 2004-September-05
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Galloway NJ USA
  • Interests:Bridge, Poker, participatory and spectator sports.
    Occupation - Tax Attorney in Atlantic City, NJ.

Posted 2014-April-06, 18:05

View PostChas_P, on 2014-April-06, 17:48, said:

Yeah, man. I know what you be sayin'. Hey!

You know, like, it is what it is.
0

#5 User is offline   Bbradley62 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 6,542
  • Joined: 2010-February-01
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Brooklyn, NY, USA

Posted 2014-April-06, 18:13

View Postkenberg, on 2014-April-06, 17:19, said:

Like he sayin totally but I'm like thinkin no way dude but you got your space and I got mine man so I say if that's what floats your boat, dig it, I'm cool.

Wow! You got several generations in there.
0

#6 User is offline   blackshoe 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,562
  • Joined: 2006-April-17
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Rochester, NY

Posted 2014-April-06, 23:20

'"Contact" is not a verb!' -- Nero Wolfe, ca. 1935.
--------------------
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
0

#7 User is offline   Trinidad 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 4,531
  • Joined: 2005-October-09
  • Location:Netherlands

Posted 2014-April-07, 01:50

You know, there is, you know, nothing new under the, you know, sun. If you know what I mean, you know.

Rik
I want my opponents to leave my table with a smile on their face and without matchpoints on their score card - in that order.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg
0

#8 User is offline   helene_t 

  • The Abbess
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,068
  • Joined: 2004-April-22
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:UK

Posted 2014-April-07, 04:33

In Dutch the 3rd person plural dative pronoun "hun" is increasingly being used in nominative. This used to be a Rotterdam thing but it's spreading. However, it is used only to refer to humans (and sometimes animals). So the language has been enriched by a new pronoun - you can now see on the pronoun whether it refers to animate or inanimate subjects.

I never thought of "like" (or fvcking, or "you know") as sophistications but yes, the author has a point.

Languages have always been evolving. Probably they used to evolve faster than they do now where nation-states and the written language conserve them. I like the headline ("you've been verbed") from this article, by the way: http://moreintellige...uve-been-verbed
The world would be such a happy place, if only everyone played Acol :) --- TramTicket
0

#9 User is offline   y66 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 6,496
  • Joined: 2006-February-24

Posted 2014-April-07, 06:51

Quote

Steven Pinker, in his book “The Language Instinct” (1994), points out that “easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that make English English.” Elizabethan writers revelled in it: Shakespeare’s Duke of York, in “Richard II” (c1595), says “Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle”, and the 1552 Book of Common Prayer includes a service “commonly called the Churching of Women”.


I feel like I've just been water coolered.
If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
0

#10 User is offline   gwnn 

  • Csaba the Hutt
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 13,027
  • Joined: 2006-June-16
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Göttingen, Germany
  • Interests:bye

Posted 2014-April-07, 06:55

View Posthelene_t, on 2014-April-07, 04:33, said:

In Dutch the 3rd person plural dative pronoun "hun" is increasingly being used in nominative. This used to be a Rotterdam thing but it's spreading. However, it is used only to refer to humans (and sometimes animals). So the language has been enriched by a new pronoun - you can now see on the pronoun whether it refers to animate or inanimate subjects.

I don't know so much about Dutch dialects, much less about the Rotterdam one, but I found it funny that the campaign of VVD (biggest right-wing party) for the local elections in Rotterdam had the slogan "In Rotterdam we speak Dutch!" and there were some comments saying "well, actually you're mostly butchering it."
... and I can prove it with my usual, flawless logic.
      George Carlin
0

#11 User is offline   Trinidad 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 4,531
  • Joined: 2005-October-09
  • Location:Netherlands

Posted 2014-April-07, 08:32

View Postgwnn, on 2014-April-07, 06:55, said:

I don't know so much about Dutch dialects, much less about the Rotterdam one, but I found it funny that the campaign of VVD (biggest right-wing party) for the local elections in Rotterdam had the slogan "In Rotterdam we speak Dutch!" and there were some comments saying "well, actually you're mostly butchering it."

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the VVD slogan was "'k Tacht ut niet!". (Or as it would be pronounced in proper Dutch: "Ik dacht het niet!". This losely translates to "I don't think so, Tim!" (for those who remember "Home Improvement").

Rik
I want my opponents to leave my table with a smile on their face and without matchpoints on their score card - in that order.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg
0

#12 User is offline   Winstonm 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,190
  • Joined: 2005-January-08
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • Interests:Art, music

Posted 2014-April-07, 10:05

I am, like, down with that. Dig?
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
0

Page 1 of 1
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users