The loss of cliché comprehension in modern text

[NeonLX]

OK, so how is the word "often" pronounced?

Back in the day, I don't remember hearing the "t" after the "f".

But now it seems to be more the rule than the exception (sorry).

[semper occultus]

..the phrase "shooting yourself in the foot" is pretty universally used nowadays to mean a dumb and entirely accidental piece of self-inflicted harm or blow-back - Coca Cola changing its formula, not strangling Dick Cheney at birth etc etc...

it's orginal meaning was that you did it deliberately so as to get invalided away from almost certain death in the trenches in WW1 - incur a small loss now to avoid much greater loss in future

[a11235813]

And BPH. I meant the title as it sits and not in the sense of "how is sitting on this guy's cock right now treating you?" And then have some random FBI story from Wichita or something greet you when you click the link.

Here, here.

[JackRiddler]

It's known that my clan are immigrants, me being the first-born in the new country. So I've heard a lot of Engreek or Greeklish dialect, and sometimes just eggcorns, as when my father is angered by another driver and calls him a Salalabitch. The vehicle is a karro, not an avtokinito (which of course means auto-mobile; for all the invasion of Greek by English, historically as we all know it's many times greater in the other direction, and fancy thinkers are still coming up with Greek-rooted neologisms all the time, like kakistocracy and sociopatholigarchy). My mother combines "wait a minute" and "perimene" (which means to wait) into a hybrid yo-ree-meh-ne, that works in either language. Freak out became frikaro so long ago that I never knew it was an English import until recently. And yes, Greeks make seks while listening to rohk kai pohp.

Greeklish refers not only to the immigrants' mix of English with Greek but more recently to the practice of transliterating Greek in Latin characters, which got big with the Internet and the problems of displaying Greek type. You can see me doing Greeklish sometimes with undead. There are no rules to this practice, although given the capitalist drive to rationalize, multinationals doing business in Greece probably have stylebooks for it. There are two variations. Greek native speakers usually do it orthographically, choosing Latin letters that look like the Greek letters even if they don't sound like them, so n is used for the Greek pi and h for the itta and w for the omega because they look similar, even though they are phonetically unlike. Non-Greek native speakers will tend to do it phonetically, e.g. choosing p for the pi and i or ee for the itta and o for the omega.

Just now, searching for examples, I've discovered a Wikipedia page and indeed academic papers on Greeklish, with the distinction between orthographic and phonetic being one of the issues discussed. And here I thought I'd been the first one who'd noticed!

Also, of course the frackin' multinationals have Greeklish stylebooks. Sigh. They'll just suck the life out of everything.

.

Also, in '98, when Greece had its market bubble burst (such a shock), I asked a guy who'd gotten out early (an off-the-books taxi driver) what he had been buying. He said, "Bloo tseeps!"

.

[undead]

Right now there are elements in the Greek school system that are trying to change the language so that there is only one "e", mainly because of the difficulty with Greek characters on the internet and computer keyboards. It is quite an Orwellian trend but for most of Greece it might be easier to change the language than it would be to learn how to use computers. Most of them can't spell anyway.

Eenglis words used in Grik:

Okii (okay)

Bai (bye)

Sorri (sorry)

Fool (full)

Kool

Seks (sex)

Stantarnt (standard)

Skank ("sunk" or sinsemillia)

Chipi (ch like Chanukah)

Yehyeh (old term for hippie, people who listened to Beatles and other American music in which people said "yeah yeah yeah..." etc. )

Trans (trance, music)

Bar

Gey (gay)

Kaouboi (cowboy)

Hangkover

It may seem strange to imagine that there is no word for "hangover" in the Greek language, but imagine how many Greeks spend most of their lives in that state. If fish could talk, they probably wouldn't understand what the word "wet" means.

[8bitagent]

This entire thread can be summed up in two words:

Sheldon Cooper



Words always flow and change. We should be thankful there is still language of any sort, given how writing/comprehension/attention spans have plummeted in the last five years.

With the way pop culture re-appropriates inner city language and filters it back for suburbanite kids; the growing cross pollination of multi-cultural and counter cultural language
and just new ways people have in expressing themselves...and yes, the overwhelming influence that shorthand/text talk has on youth language; language itself is having a massive shift.

It's funny, I saw a special on Mel Brooks life and it's interesting that (on tv, radio and films at least) people spoke in that "extra extra, readallaboutit" 1930's big city bravado way alllll the way til even the 1970's.
Including the way words were phrased and such.

[8bitagent]

As to another point that Jack brings up and Luther as well as far as history. Why is it my granny back east in PA says WARshington or WARsh as opposed to the "proper" way?

Why is it when my dad, from PA always called my mom "MOM" when in Colorado, but as soon as he got back to PA and was around his family and old culture, it became "MUM"?

"You guys" turned into "you-uns" or just "yuns"? Get back to Colorado and he would slip right out of it.

edit:

To add, why were my grandparents out west, where I was raised called grandma and grandma, while back east they were referred to as granny and pap-pap?

Same reason Bjork sounds more British in some interviews, or more Icelandic accent in other interviews(where she's speaking in English?)
Bi-lingual-ness still blows my mind. My South African friend flys back and forth between Afrikaans and English, as does my friend who speaks both Spanish and English.

Sometimes the switch is more conscience I feel. I've known guys who spoke/acted "more black" when he was around family than with his nerdy friends. Same with my friend who is gay
but "acts/sounds" more pronounced when he's with his brethren.

Heck I think even I change my words or demeanor depending on the company.

[8bitagent]

The weirdest one for me are people who say "MOZ-lums". To quote a ridiculously bad internet reaction, "Wut?"

And strangely(sadly), I now hear people(mostly younger) add "s" to the end of things(like "internets")...but they forget it's tongue and cheek(still not sure what that word means and never cared for it)

The focus on modern day mispronounciation fascination seems to come from George W Bush...which to me felt like a limited hangout. "Man, that Bush was so dumb...haha". Not "that Bush enacted lie based decisions that killed close to a million Iraqis"

[justdrew]

gotcha!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-in-cheek

the ironic thing is, 'inter-nets' is not without basis, as 'the internet' is really a network of networks.

[8bitagent]

gotcha!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-in-cheek

the ironic thing is, 'inter-nets' is not without basis, as 'the internet' is really a network of networks.

Aw, the past centuries and their funny writing. (I mean, intelligent writing) The further we go down the communication-techno-gadget waterslide, the dummer we dun git.

A century and a half before Dubya, we had this
(Martin van Buren's inaugural address)

The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an obligation I cheerfully fulfill—to accompany the first and solemn act of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge so responsible and vast. In imitating their example I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our happiness to believe are not found on the executive calendar of any country. Among them we recognize the earliest and firmest pillars of the Republic—those by whom our national independence was first declared, him who above all others contributed to establish it on the field of battle, and those whose expanded intellect and patriotism is constructed, improved, and perfected the inestimable institutions under which we live. If such men in the position I now occupy felt themselves overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for this the highest of all marks of their country's confidence, and by a consciousness of their inability adequately to discharge the duties of an office so difficult and exalted, how much more must these considerations affect one who can rely on no such claims for favor or forbearance! Unlike all who have preceded me, the Revolution that gave us existence as one people was achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with grateful reverence that memorable event, I feel that I belong to a later age and that I may not expect my countrymen to weigh my actions with the same kind and partial hand.

In the new film Lincoln, I wonder if they really spoke like that behind closed doors. Some might call it...a bit pompous.

[Belligerent Savant]

[removed comment -- overlooked justdrew's response above, which already beat me to the tongue-in-cheek thingy]

[Canadian_watcher]

ahhhhhh changes (chainges?)
Although I do not always like them, they`re really an old person's worry, aren't they?

things happen - like say cities get buried by ash or giant monuments become buried (still not sure how THAT happens.. but anyway...)... statues get vandalised and language is bastardized.

it's all history in the making. Winged Victory is still glorious - more so, probably, without her head and arms.

it's fun to watch it morph, but kind of fruitless to lament it.

[82_28]

UOK? 'Dystextia' Alerts Doctors To Neurological Problems

A young, pregnant woman went for a routine doctor's visit to find out her due date. As she was leaving the office, she got a text message from her husband:

Husband: So what's the deal?

Wife: Every where thinging days nighing

Wife: Some is where!

Husband: What the hell does that mean?

Husband: You're not making any sense.

Turns out the woman was having a stroke. And her garbled texting — something doctors are now calling 'dystextia' — was an early clue to the problem.

Concerned by the nonsensical messages, the husband met up with his wife and rushed her to the emergency room. Neurologists quickly realized that a region of her brain involved with language was damaged.

"The dystextia was the first clinical sign that we had that she was having a stroke," Dr. Joshua Klein at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., tells Shots.

Impaired speech is a common sign of a stroke, he says. But in this case, the woman had lost her voice because of a cold. So the series of mangled messages were the smoking gun of a language problem.

He and his colleagues describe the case in the Archives of Neurology.

The dystextia wasn't essential to diagnosing the stroke, Klein says. They would've figured it out from tests they ran and other symptoms, such as numbness in the woman's right arm.
Another MRI of the woman's brain showed signs of a stroke in a region involved with language.

"But it [the dystextia] was an unusual piece of data that fit with the other clinical findings," he says. "It helped us understand the nature of the problem."

The woman luckily suffered no permanent damage and quickly recovered her ability to speak and to text.

Klein thinks text messages will become increasingly important for neurologists as electronic conversations replace a lot of verbal communication.

Dystexia has been linked to a stroke at least once before. And it's been seen in a patient with a complex migraine, which can cause a variety of neurological symptoms, such as difficulty speaking and vision loss.

But there are many reasons why people mess up texts messages: You can be walking, driving, drinking or just generally distracted.

So how do you know when dystextia is cause for concern?

Everything has to be taken in context, Klein notes. But he says if someone is having a problem communicating for some unknown reason, whether it be talking, texting or even reading, they should get checked out by a doctor.

In particular, Klein says, some warning signs of stroke include problems formulating the words you want to text, trouble typing the text because your fingers are numb or weak, or sudden vision loss.

As you probably know, though, many smartphones have an autocorrect function that can introduce erroneous word substitutions in messages. "This can give the false impression of a language disorder," Klein says. "In our patient's case, autocorrect had been previously disabled on her mobile device."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/12 ... l-problems

[Canadian_watcher]

She was leaving the doctor's office while having a stroke. sounds like she and I might have the same medical team.

[Luther Blissett]

[quote="8bitagent"Same reason Bjork sounds more British in some interviews, or more Icelandic accent in other interviews(where she's speaking in English?)
Bi-lingual-ness still blows my mind. My South African friend flys back and forth between Afrikaans and English, as does my friend who speaks both Spanish and English.

Sometimes the switch is more conscience I feel. I've known guys who spoke/acted "more black" when he was around family than with his nerdy friends. Same with my friend who is gay
but "acts/sounds" more pronounced when he's with his brethren.

Heck I think even I change my words or demeanor depending on the company.[/quote]

What you describe is basically both of the (very different) definitions of what is referred to as code switching.

I definitely code switch between at least five different manners.