Language is always changing. At one point ‘an apron’ was ‘a napron’ while words like ‘literally’ are no longer literally literal. What are some language battles that have been lost in living memory and what are some others you predict will soon occur?
Edit: Non-english examples very welcome!
“Decimating” no longer means killing ten percent as the Romans did; now it is used to mean the killing of a majority, so it’s close to the opposite of its original meaning.
We were always supposed to put punctuation inside quotation marks; however, now it seems to be the user’s choice of inside or outside. And I have to admit that most of the time when I’m using quotes, it seems more logical to me to place the punctuation outside of them.
We were always supposed to put punctuation inside quotation marks;
Isn’t this a US English thing? In India we were taught to close them like brackets - i.e., the one that opened last closes first. So
‘Don’t wait. I will come later.’
But
He said ‘I will come later’.
You know, I actually prefer that it be variable, but only when it serves a purpose.
Like, if Im quoting someone “I might want to indicate that they completed a sentence.”, but also continue beyond it.
Loose and lose might as well be the same word these days. Drives me up a damn wall.
That and “POV” doesn’t mean what it used to mean anymore. Also drives me up a wall.
Is it not “point of view”?
What…what does POV mean now??
POV: I am confused
Breathe and breath too…
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Australian English language is now largely Americanised, a process that started in the post-war era is now mostly complete.
- Terms such as ‘gaol’ have been widely replaced by ‘jail’.
- ‘Programme’ is mostly replaced by ‘program’.
- A ‘car bonnet’ is likely to be called a ‘hood’.
- ‘Play lunch’ is mostly replaced with ‘recess’.
- ‘Pusher’ is mostly called a ‘pram’
- ‘Lacker band’ is now mostly just ‘rubber band’.
- ‘Boomer’ no longer means kangaroo, but instead ‘Old person.’
I’m not really bothered by it or anything, but it’s been interesting to see it shift even over my lifetime.
Americans don’t use pram though, we say stroller
Yeah, pram is a British term. Or pushchair.
Yes, but we got the good aussie slang!
Like, “no worries”. Fucking love it.
‘Programme’ is mostly replaced by ‘program’.
We can still pronounce it correctly (with an O like ‘pronounce’ or ‘proclaim’) so there’s that
Far as I’ve ever seen, that’s how everyone pronounces it.
Bonnet
Australian
Uwotm8
I suppose the word “boomer” has changed meaning very quickly. It rarely gets used anymore to refer to actual boomers (people born just after WW2) and instead now can refer either vaguely to anyone older than 30, or anyone with an antiquated/problematic notion of social norms.
I miss double spaces after periods.
LUXURY!BACKINMYDAYWEDIDNTHAVESPACES.DONTGETMESTARTEDONTHISLOWERCASENONSENSE
We…don’t do this anymore? I can’t even recall what I’ve been doing for this for the last 20 years.
Our browser is going to fingerprint us through this habit and we’re going to get served knee replacement ads because of it.
Print publishing has 500 years of convention built on trial and error.
As a person who learned to type on a typewriter, and then became a typesetter and publisher, and now does a lot of editing, double spaces are only of use in a monospace type face where there is no kerning possible.
Otherwise, type with variable spaces between the letters plus variable letter sizes is physically harder to read when there are extra gaps between the sentences, despite the way you were trained (by boomers, probably) to type.
Presently used to mean “soon” or “in a bit” but now means “happening right now”
The meaning of bemused is similar to “befuddled”, but it’s more often used as if it means “amused”
It used to be a firm rule that you mustn’t end a sentence in a proposition.
The preposition one is what I came to say.
From my perspective, literally being used for emphasis does not actually change its meaning, it’s simply hyperbole.
If you complain that you’ve been “waiting for hours”, even though it’s been 45 minutes, that doesn’t change the meaning of “hours”, you’re just exaggerating.
Hyperbole is a stylistic element; style is a completely different level of language than grammar/spelling/semantics (word meanings). As another example of style, ending a sentence with a preposition is grammatically correct but stylistically not recommended.
“I’ve told you a million times, don’t exaggerate”
The OED actually includes the definition of literally as being what used to be the opposite of its definition nowadays, so I think that it does count as an auto-antonym (a word that means both itself, and the opposite of itself)
Us that technically a missing Oxford comma, or just a missing comma?
The grandma quote is a missing comma in general, but there’s another reply with a missing Oxford Comma.
Although punctuation is waning, I’m willing to spend the time to use it.
The rich couple, me and ScarJo donated ten thousand dollars to a local charity school.
From my cold dead hands!!
Ain’t ain’t a word.
It is now.
would of literally their
Literally Literally
Ending sentences with propositions, and getting them jumbled around. My work does it in their advertisements and i cry every time.
“See what classes you can register for.” Or modifying it to be worse; “see what classes you can register for fast”
propositions
Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?
LOL I’m gonna leave it that way 🤣
“Casted”
The past-tense of cast is cast. “The fisherman cast their line into the river.” “The actor was cast in the leading role.”
Casted makes you sound like a child.
I think any word sounds more childish with ed on the end! “I wented fishinged at the beached and casteded”
Pronouns getting weird, especially when and is added, like “for him and I” or “her and I’s house”.
Also excetera for etcetera and mischievious for mischievous
I get irrationally angry any time I hear “I’s”. I can tolerate most other grammar issues, but something about that particular butchery of English drives me up the wall.
It’s just indolence.
It’s like people who put an S on the end of ‘e-mail’ to pluralize it.
Would you rather prefer i’s or mine’s?
People no longer double-space after sentences. No one cares that further compares metaphorical distance and farther compares physical distance. Most people seem to think that joining two independent clauses with a comma (a comma splice) is just fine. Things are now done on accident instead of by accident. Compute used to be something you did; now, it’s something you rent. People seem to have given up on less being used for uncountable things and fewer for countable things. Now they just use less for everything. People these days are enamored ‘by’ something instead of with it (or of it, for our British friends).
