Today’s the 120th anniversary of a key moment in the history of English honorifics. On Nov. 10, 1901, the Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Republican suggested that “a void in the English language” may be filled by “Ms.” (pronounced “Mizz”) as an alternative to “Miss” or “Mrs.” 🧵 1/13
Word researchers often try to one-up each other via “antedating,” i.e., finding progressively earlier examples of a particular lexical item. In my years of playing the antedating game, finding the first known proposal for the title “Ms.” is perhaps my proudest achievement. 2/13
For decades the earliest known “Ms.” mention was in Mario Pei’s 1949 “The Story of Language”: “Feminists, who object to the distinction between ‘Mrs.’ and ‘Miss’…have often proposed that the two present-day titles be merged into a single one, ‘Miss’ (to be written ‘Ms.’).” 3/13
Where were these earlier proposals for “Ms.” to which Mario Pei alluded? The closest precursor that had been found was a 1932 letter to the New York Times where the title “M’s” is suggested, not quite the same as “Ms.” but in the ballpark. 4/13
Side note: Some have theorized that “Ms.” has much older roots, as evidenced by the tombstone of Sarah Spooner, who died in 1767 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. On the headstone, the name appears to be preceded by “M” with a superscript “s.” 5/13
As @DrGrammar observes in his excellent 1986 book “Grammar and Gender,” what appears on the Spooner headstone “is certainly an abbreviation of ‘Miss’ or ‘Mistress,’ and not an example of colonial language reform or a slip of the chisel, as some have suggested.” 6/13
But what of modern marriage-neutral “Ms.”? My first research breakthrough came in 2007 when I uncovered an item in a newspaper database from the Humeston (Iowa) New Era of Dec. 4, 1901, commenting on the Springfield Republican’s suggestion of “Ms.” 7/13
“As a word to be used in place of ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs.,’ when the addresser is ignorant of the state of the person addressed, the Springfield Republican suggests a word of which ‘Ms.’ is the abbreviation…” But where was the original suggestion? 8/13
It took another couple of years to find the Springfield Republican article on “Ms.” The newspaper was not yet digitized, and searches on microfilm came up empty. (Remember microfilm?) Other researchers, like Fred Shapiro of
@yalelawlibrary, were also hot on the trail. 9/13
Fred Shapiro (author of the indispensable Yale Book of Quotations) made a key discovery in 2009 when he managed to find a republished version of the Springfield Republican item in the Salt Lake Tribune of Nov. 17, 1901. 10/13
I redoubled my efforts to find the original proposal and struck pay-dirt when I found the item under the heading “Men, Women and Affairs,” at the bottom of p. 4 of the Nov. 10, 1901 issue. I shared the news in my
Later in 2009, I was able to expand on my discovery in an @OnLanguage
column for @nytimes and fleshed out more of the history of the honorific. I interviewed Sheila Michaels, who was the key proponent for “Ms.” in 1960s feminist circles. 12/13
Sheila Michaels (who died in 2017) was amazed to learn that the title she fought for had roots back to 1901. I’m happy to have played a part in uncovering the hidden history of “Ms.” and am glad I can pay homage to the indefatigable Ms. Michaels. 13/13
The 300-Year History of Using ‘Literally’ Figuratively
Folks love a good linguistic peeve, and the figurative or emphatic “literally” is a fan favorite. It’s practically a rite of new-media passage to write a piece dismissing “literally,” and when someone discovered in 2013 that most American dictionaries entered a sense for “literally” that covered its figurative uses, lexicographers were inundated with angry emails and phone calls. Smith detailed his antipathy to Grub Street, and many emphatic “literally” naysayers likely nodded in agreement. “Since it’s English, it’s probably happening in England, and maybe Australia […] I had a woman from Miami the other night tell me it’s happening down there,” he says. “And it’s not just millennials. Now you hear newscasters using ‘literally’ every three minutes on the Sunday news shows.”
The emphatic “literally” is not a millennial invention; it goes back to the 1700s at least, though Smith gets it right that it’s English. John Dryden, a man who is best known as the founder of literary criticism and the prohibition against the terminal preposition, was an early user of the emphatic “literally.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace all used the emphatic “literally” in their works. Even Lindley Murray, 19th-century grammarian, uses the hyperbolic “literally” in his own grammar — and he was such a peever that he thought children, along with animals, shouldn’t be referred to with the pronoun “who,” as “who” conveys personhood, and only creatures with the ability to be rational are actually people.
Semantic shifts– lots of words that spelled the same have had shifts in meaning (either denotationor connotation)
Verbose texts– seems to be no check on using too many words – showing off
More reference to religionand its prevalence
Naïve readersallow for easy convincing by writer – texts have automatic authority – anything written down is imbued with importance
Archaic vocabularye.g. dilatory, expeditious, assiduously – to enhance status/power – make text look dated – boosts status + archaic words – symbol of high status & knowledge + latinate words – exclude the less literate (at the time, usually those of lower social class)
More regard for writer– status of written text is huge.
Since not many people would know how to read, those that did would be able to read to a high degree to literacy, as they were very wealthy and well-educated – less accommodation for less literate.
Books were only aimed at the upper classesof society because they were the only ones that were proficient at reading. They could accentuate this and make themselves seem even more intelligent by reading texts with complex structures and several ideas.
Role of the writer– since there weren’t as many people who could read in the 18th century, the quality of written text, in terms of making it enjoyable for everyone, was lower because they didn’t place an emphasis on making text nice and easy to read.
Role of text– texts of the time served quite a practical focus in a lot of instances, with things like advertisements in newspapers aimed at the upper classes being mostly written. Purpose – Texts were mainly written to inform, and benefit the writers as membersof society
Blunt tone– points are delivered very simply – less attempt to be subtle / manipulating
Engagement / Entertainment– There isn’t much attention paid to the pleasure of the reader who is taking in the text
Opinionated content– influence/control– forceful and dogmatic about pushing your opinion + dictate information & opinions to the reader
Naivety– naïve writer = about how readers are convinced, & naïve reader = less exposed to text – less experience of text & published material. But this means for naive readers as the texts are easily manipulative – make the reader think a certain way for or against something, e.g. whenever the writers talk about God or England.
Texts were often used to show status & maintain the social hierarchy by excluding those of lower status who were commonly perceived to be uneducated, and therefore unable to read the complex pieces of writing that were published during the 18th century (Latinate words were the jargon of the time)
Writers usually had little regard for their readers, and prioritised making the text seem old and knowledgeable, rather than catering to the readers’ needs – So not meeting the reader’s needs. Show little regard for the reader but instead the writer, perhaps because it was a big deal and a rare and respected deal to become a writer in those times.
Arrogance– The writers usually write highly of themselves or make the text difficult to understand with really intelligent sounding words to make the reader know the writer is smart (and maybe smarter than the reader)
Large emphasis on status and power in 1700s text, as social class was a big deal back then, therefore it heavily impacts the writing of that time (possibly due to most writers already being upper class) Another way the writer can make themselves stand out and look better.
Ornate– writer shows off (high status for text)– high level vocabulary. The sentences are much longer and highly constructed, more complex, maybe the writer expects a shared wavelength of thought and intelligence from the reader, or they simply just disregard the reader totally.Latinate wordstend to proliferate – to show power and status
Texts back then were very free to get away with anything, e.g. racist, sexist misogynistic, religion. Itwas very narrow and blunt, quite manipulative too, none of this would be accepted in today’s writing. Womenare written about in a very different manner – a much more patriarchal society
In texts from the 1700s we often find that the writer writes with a lack of deference to the reader i.e. the reader is just told what to think and is not treated with the respect you would get from authors today. This is probably because if writers were telling readers what to think today and were not mindful of the reader’s needs, people simply wouldn’t read or buy the book which is what an author needs them to do. Whilst in the 1700s, writers were writing for a much smaller audience
Texts were ornate and over-written, for example the writer would use complex sentences and show off their extensive vocabulary which would exclude readers as many people were illiterate at the time but these writers would expect that the people who were reading their texts would be of a similar status as them and be educated similarly with the same ideals and so would often understand and agree with what they’re writing. Modern texts use less long, sophisticated sentences because they’re more mindful of the readers needs
Standards– Writers seemed much more concerned with being grammatically correct and formal than they are in modern times.
The texts portrayed the very different views of society’s institutionssuch as the education ‘system’, they had at the time. For example, education was mainly directed towards boys and the education they would receive was very different to what we receive now. They would learn things that would help them have status in society, surrounding the role of being a ‘gentleman’ and they wouldn’t really learn subjects that were considered to be feminine.
Explicit Purpose– Texts and the writer’s purpose was written much more explicitly because writers were naïve as to how texts work and readers were naïve because they won’t have been exposed to many texts
Make a text from 1700s?
I am pleased to pass on to you, dear reader, this pleasant piece of information, that the manner in which women are treated has, of late, been very detrimental to our nation’s moral fibre. Women, it is well known, are to be treated as though they were both naïve and ignorant children, as well as wild beasts in hiding; this, of course, has several important consequences, the foremost of which is that said women think that they should be treated with more respect and, for lack of a better phrase, the same as men.
Evaluate the idea that we should create a national organisation to control the use and development of English.
What Examples of language change could we use?
“Innit” – damp spoon / infectious disease – GD – efficiency/ economy – other languages – “n’est pas” French / “vero” Italian – English needs such a short cut – it’s not laziness / it’s efficiency – making language better
“like” – filler – use instead of “she/he said” – the “quotative like” – spread from LA Valley Girl – opposition based on: seeming laziness / American (anxiety about invasion / supremacy of American E –cultural anxiety) – is this a better argument for the need for control V’s language rules are not rules in the sense of laws – they are merely descriptive of use – and use is changing
“could of” – it is clearly an error of use “could of” Vs “could’ve” – doesn’t this need “rooting out”? Vs “clew” – meaning ball of thread – misunderstood as “clue” / “disinterested” – now means uninterested and no longer “unbiased” – errors are now accepted
“so” / “totally” – “She has so done that before” / “you’re totally right” / “he’s guilty as” – any problem with comprehension? – bias against “youth speech” / any change – young people are at the forefront of change
“there” / “they’re” / “their” – public shame / undermine people’s point – it is a marker of poor education? The kind of error more likely to be made by less literate people (working class) – social status / snobbery – language war is a proxy war
“In an age when discrimination in terms of race, colour, religion, or gender is not publicly acceptable, the last bastion of overt social discrimination will continue to be a person’s language” – Milroy
“fantastic” – of fantasy – the original meaning is lost – this word has change and the change is accepted – but if there was a Golden age… “brilliant” “excellent” “amazing”…. GD’s expressiveness/ reef of dead Met
“nice” – has meant ignorant, shy, fine, pleasant & agreeable over 1000 years – crumbling castle? Meaning has completely flipped – decay? But which meaning is the once that accords with the finishing touches of the castle?
“infer” / “imply” – “three items or less” – the greengrocer’s apostrophe – “6 carrot’s”
“hopefully” – as an adverb to modify whole sentences / ending sentences with a preposition /
How could we translate pairs of examples into paragraph points for this essay?
Nice / Aggravate
People’s prejudices, as Jean Aitchison pointed out in her Damp Spoon Parody, often dictate their views of language change, leading to erroneous ideas: perhaps the best example of which would bea national organisation to control the use and development of English.For example “Nice”, deriving from Latin to not know, “nice” has variously meant ignorant, coy, reserved, fastidious, scrupulous, fine and subtle, before coming to mean pleasant or agreeable. There had been some dispute in recent times whether nice really meant subtle, a relatively older meaning, or pleasant, a more recent meaning. For a time both meanings coexisted, then the latter won out, simply because of convention, which is ultimately what decides a word’s meaning, though prejudice can affect meaning. The prejudice at play here is that older meanings are somehow better than more recent meanings; however, no one would argue for “nice” meaning ignorant, which is an even older meaning. The preference for one meaning over another, which often informs arguments about language change, is often as groundless as any other preference, though often based on other social prejudices, with some instances of language use typical of more educated people, and some of less educated people. Take “aggravate”, where the older meaning of to make more serious, does battle today with the more recent meaning of to irritate: well-educated people are aware of the older meaning, and see this use of the word as a marker of being well educated, and the latter use as a marker of being poorly educated. “Could of” is a classic example of this: where people who are less literate will use this phrase rather than “could have”. It is prejudice, not reason, driving attitudes to language change, with some instances being seen as markers of class or education, and therefore as negative changes.
Other pairs of words subject to change / exemplifying change:
Ejaculation
Erection
Whilst it may seem easy to find instances of what appears to be cases of the fine castle of English crumbling to pieces, as per Jean Aitchison’s Crumbling Castle Parody, it is also futile to seek to stop such changes. So when a word acquires a sexual connotation, it is lost to general use and our language is may well be the poorer.
“innit”
“’cos”
“selfie”
“tweet”
“unfriend”
“ghost”
Whereas new words such as “innit” and “cos” might seem to show that language is being impoverished, as in Jean Aitchison’s Damp Spoon Parody, surely new words such as “selfie”, “tweet”, “unfriend”, “ghost” can be seen as instances of the enrichment of the language, therefore arguing against the need for such a national organisation to preserve our language.
“immigration”
“decimate”
With our language being volatile and with so many words in flux, surely our language is in danger of falling to pieces, as per Jean Aitchison’s Crumbling Castle Parody: what does the word “immigrant” mean today? And what might it mean in a decade’s time? And how can we know what a person means now? So don’t we need someone in charge? With connotations of “swarm”…
“mobile” – functional language change – a necessary semantic shift (not lexical change – as the spelling hasn’t changed) – A ‘mobile’ – a noun – a moveable vehicle, and then it became a prefix of sorts: mobile-home – really an adjective – moved word class (noun to adjective) – back to a noun – meaning ‘phone’ – as example of conversion
“clue” – from an error – “clew” – a ball of string
Language change cannot be regulated – the impetus for language change comes from all directions – functional or necessary change to mirror social and technological change, as well as simple errors. This is random fluctuation theory, that language is being pulled and pushed from all directions at once.
“nice” – has switched meaning so many times in the last 100 years – it has done a semantic change 180 (flipped) a number of times – form ‘ignorant’ to ‘subtle’ etc…
“bitch” – controversial – political correctness – men can’t use it – why? ‘Karen’
“N-word” – we are getting a class of words whose meaning / offence / permission is dependent on the user. Something has changed in the last 2 years – that means a white person just cannot use it –
Language change has not exactly sped up – it can span centuries or weeks – but recently language change has become far more fraught (prone to dispute), complicated and context dependent: the idea that it can be objectively regulated looks less and less viable by the year.
Class 1
Emoji – from Japan – J- the word is a borrowing – which we have never been able to regulate – consider the Ac Francaise – failure to stop ‘le weekend’ etc. Emojis themselves have flooded out communication – carrying menaing in new and unprecedented ways – how can this be regulated? J
“innit” – teen speak – why have kids invented this? Lazy? Stupid? Or Efficient – other languages have a ‘innit’ – eg French ‘n’est pas?’ and Italian has ‘vero?’ – English needed such a confirmatory tag question word – so kids invented it
Language change can come from need, where a gap is discovered or felt in our language; however, it can also come from unexpected and unpredictable places: who would have thought of the rise of the emoji? Showing how regulation faces too much chaos in the system.
“could of” – error – like clue / clew – surely a case of something that needs ‘exorcizing’
“aggravate” – this subtle semantic shift – also comes from an error – as with ‘disinterested’
The ultimate problem with language change and regulation is the millions of people using it, all in their own way. So that chances of an error or misapprehension is huge, and has been huge since the beginning of time – showing how regulation is impossible – like King Canute holding back the tide.
Potential Paragraphs in Essay
1
Trudgill looks at the semantic shift of words, such as the pejorationof the adjective ‘awful’, shifting from meaning ‘inspiring awe’ to something very bad. His descriptive approach towards language change (and it constantly occurring) is highlighted in the quote‘language change cannot be halted. Nor should the worriersfeel obliged to halt it’. He later focuses on the adjective ‘disinterested’ (meaning to be impartial to something) and the common adjective ‘uninterested’ (meaning to be bored by something). Trudgill states that due to ‘confusion’ between these similar words, people have begun to adopt the same meaning for both. He combats the opposition by arguing that this semantic shift in language is associated with the prefix ‘dis’, which is commonly used as a method of creating negative connotations for an adjective. Trudgill argues that an issue of ambiguity should not arise between the two meanings as nobody should be confused if one were used in place of another (such as in ‘the school children were very disinterested’), as the sentence context should provide a marker for which meaning is being implied. There therefore appearsto be a place for both ‘disinterested’ and ‘uninterested’ in the English language,and thus language should not be regulated as there is no need to control changes that are still understandable and do not change the propositional meaning in context.
2
In his work “The Forces of Destruction”, Guy Deutscher argues against the idea that our language is decaying and discusses the fact that we cannot accurately define nor identify ‘decay’ because we can’t label a time when language was ‘perfect’, or pinpoint a ‘golden age of perfection’. He believes that many people see language as changing for the worse, sticking with “irrational nostalgia”because language decay and destruction are easier to sport by “the naked eye”. The creation and rejuvenation of language is much harder to see, so descriptivists may feel the need to have a standard regulator for English, despite lacking the need for one. He points out that language changes everywhere, constantly. For example, ‘The Irregularity of Flowers’, this discusses how the noun flos ‘flower’ in Latin belongs to the third declension, so should follow the language rules in Latin to have regular forms in different cases. In practice, the actual forms have the ‘s’ replaced with an ‘r’. At one point in history, ‘flowers’ was regular, however a completely regular change resulted in the formation of an irregularity. Overtime people have accepted this change, and nowadays it isn’t thought of as ‘negative’ but simply as a change which occurred in Latin many years ago.This example shows that language change happens everywhere throughout history, and so does not need to be regulated because it isn’t always negative. It argues against the idea of a crumbling castle view (Aitchison), and says that “The English of today is not what it used to be, but then again, it never was”. Here Deutscher is arguing that language change has always happened and that there is no evidence to show that this change is negative.Without any proof of negatively changing English, we couldn’t have a national organisation to control the use and development of English, and if we can never provide a ‘golden age’ then there is nothing to base any rules off.
3
Trudgilll argues that language change is a ‘universal characteristic of human language’. The word ‘nice’ has undergone multiple incidences of semantic change through amelioration- from meaning something stupid to now meaning something pleasant; similarly, the word ‘amuse’, now meaning to find something funny, once meant to deceive. Aitchison parodied prescriptiviststhrough the crumbling castle view- implying language is slowly decaying from a previous point of perceived perfection. However, ‘nice’ has experienced multiple semantic changes- begging the question of which meaning is the one seen as ‘perfect’. The lack of specification of time reflects the fact that there was no point where language was viewed as ‘perfect’ by everyone. Comparably, the word ‘ejaculation’ has experienced narrowing- from meaning ‘an abrupt, exclamatory utterance’ to developing a sexual meaning. ‘Silly’ has also experienced pejoration- from meaning blessed to now meaning lacking sense. Prescriptivists like Muller state language change is a ‘gradual process of decay’ as it is supposedly being robbed of meanings- when a word develops a sexual connotation, its original meaning is seen as stolen. However, Aitchison would argue that ‘variety is key to language’; meaning semantic change is vital to language in order for it to be flexible. The introduction of a national organisation would prevent this flexibility- preventing semantic change which, in Aitchison’s view, is integral to language.
4
Milroy contests the prescriptivist idea that there was a ‘Golden Age’ of language and that language is in decline due to moral decline. This, they believe, is causing children to become lazier and less competent than other generations when using Standard English (SE). Any other form would be seen as ‘incorrect’ as SE generally is equated to ‘correct English’. For example, the assimilation of “could of” instead of “could have” is seen by prescriptivists as sloppiness by people who do not care about maintaining the ‘pristine’ language. However, this blurring of speech doesn’t change any pragmatics, as in the full flow of speech it sounds the same, therefore there shouldn’t be a problem surrounding it. Milroy agrees with Aitchison’s ‘crumbling castle’ parody, taking issue with the idea that language was carefully assembled until it reached a point of maximum splendour which ought to be preserved. They both failed to find a time where it was at its peak, but found that language used by children today, in both speech and language, is grammatically sound. It still faces discrimination due to social factors regarding certain regional dialects having negative stereotypes, such as words like “innit” which is a contraction of “isn’t it”. Although it carries no grammatical error, and other languages have this contraction for ease of utterance, for example the French “nest-ce pas”,prescriptivists continue to disprove of such words. We cannot say one way of speaking or writing something is more ‘proper’ than another, if the grammatical structures are sound and the pragmatics aren’t affected. Another example of this is “milk” undertaking a velar ‘l’, becoming “miuk” where mutual intelligibility is not lost and therefore the use of variation is used for performing identity (Auer)and ease of articulation, which could be seen as a ‘positive’ change to contrast with prescriptivist arguments. Their association with working class dialects, such as cockney, has lead to them being outlawed as ‘incorrect English’ andtherefore is causing language to ‘decay’. We know that language is not declining or improving, it is simply changing. Crystal makes the point that there are ‘no changes for the better; nor for the worse; just changes.’
5
In Jean Aitchison’s essay, ‘Conflicting Loyalties’, she concludes that many changes in language usually originate from elements already in the language that are borrowed and exaggerated. Using her parody metaphor, comparing language to an ‘infectious disease’ that can spread from person to personand influence the way they speak. There are various examples to back up this idea. The word ‘naff’ is thought to come from Polari (a type of cant used by criminals and, formerly, homosexuals), meaning, ‘lacking in style or good taste’, entering the English language around 1966. It appears to have become mainstream from that niche area of language, since those who heard it used, or used it themselves, in its original context would have spread it around people they knew until it was popular enough to be added to the dictionary. A similar example is the word ‘basic’. It was first used in 1842 to mean, ‘forming the base of something’. However, in recent times it has taken on a new meaning, to describe someone or something as ‘unoriginal, boring or devoid of interesting characteristics’. This new meaning has spread fast due to the increasing popularity of the internet and its associated slang.
What links ‘naff’ and ‘basic’? spread from a small area to a wider audience – can we think a longer standing example which we now accept – ‘quarantine’ – taken from a very specific context – 4 weeks – Venice – where the term was invented – because of plague – but now part of SE – or ‘sauté’ / ‘soirée’ /
Aitchison believes that the changes these words bring, along with many others in English, are neither good nor bad. Instead they serve to progress the course of language and ensure it does not stagnate.
6
In Guy Deutcher’s “The Forces of Destruction”, he writes that the destruction and creation of language are linked. He argues that many people see this so-called language destruction as a negative thing because it is easier for people to identify language decay rather than language rejuvenation. This links to the debate of whether to have an “Academie Anglais” because the same people who recognise and criticise language destruction are far more likely to want to prevent such decay, to which may result in enforcing a standard of language through a regulatory body similarly to the “Academie Francais”. Language decay can be visibly exemplified through the increasing use of the compounding “isn’t it” to “innit”. Particularly prominent in the younger generations, descriptivists are opposed to this compounding because they find it lazy. This consequently supports Aitchison’s parody of the damp spoon theory, that it is the laziness and sloppiness of language which causes it to worsen, comparing it to the same nauseous feeling as seeing a damp spoon dipped in a bowl of sugar. On the other hand, shortening and abbreviation of words exists in many other languages as well, even including the French “n’est pas”, who already have a language regulatory body, and “vero” in Italian. This could suggest that rather than it being a lazy decay of language it could be done for other reasons instead to improve the language, for example simply for speed and ease. This is something that may be prevented if there was a language regulatory body as they would see the change as a negative, rather than actually a positive, allowing for mutual intelligibility through ease of communication. Deutscher then went on to argue that language decaying or rejuvenating is neither a positive nor negative thing, rather just a way of language keeping its head above water. Therefore, in this case, a national organisation for language would not be beneficial because it hasn’t been successful in France and it must be accepted that language will change and adapt along with changes in society which isn’t a bad thing and cannot be stopped. It is also evidently subjective to the individual as to whether a word is decaying or rejuvenating and the unfair concentration on easily identifying decay cannot be the singular factor for an entire language being regulated.
7
Another idea that could be used to argue against the need for an organisation to control the use and development of English is that change is sometimes necessary to prevent the stagnation of language. In ‘a Reef of Dead Metaphors’, Deutscher comments on the verb ‘thrilled’ and how its used to mean a sudden feeling of excitement, but the metaphor ‘thrilled to bits’ has lost its original impact.Though the wording of the metaphor hasn’t changed, still lexically conveying that someone has metaphorically exploded with excitement, through overuse the term has lost its expressiveness, becoming standard place to the point that ‘thrilled’ (used to mean ‘pierce’ as in drill a hole) and ‘thrilled to bits’ barely convey different levels of excitement. The same effect can be observed in singular words too, such as ‘spectacular’ no longer conveying the idea that something is beautiful in a dramatic and eye-catching way, or ‘wonderful’ failing to portray something as inspiring delight, pleasure or admiration; due to overuse across many years these words are now basically synonymous with ‘very good.’ Because of this phenomenon of words and phrases losing power over timeit is clear that sometimes change is important to prevent the stagnation of language. Nevertheless, some prescriptivists may associate this with laziness (again just as with Aitchison’s damp spoon parody),attributing the power loss to unimaginative individuals who don’t use language creatively, but this ignores the fact that familiar expressions allow for ease of communicationand that language change brings in new expressive terms.
8
Language change could be seen to be a decay, as in recent years, due to the ill-informed conflation of immigration and terrorism, the noun ‘refugee’ has become a victim of pejoration, and politicisation.
Another word that pejorated / politicised – is feminist – femanzi
A ‘radical feminist’
The dissolutionof its meaning – why this happens – people deliberately undermining language for political motives – part of the culture war – a disingenuous twisting of words and meaning
…cannot be seen as positive, or negative, descriptivists would argue, as language, like its users is perpetually changing (Crystal, von Humboldt). Other examples of pejoration include ‘martyr’ and ‘Allah’, which may suggest religion – and the decrease of its importance – may be responsible for the increasingly negative attitudes towards these nouns. An example of progress could be the reclamation of ‘queer’, once a pejorative, derogatory term for homosexuality. Aitchison suggests that ‘a change tends to sneak quickly into a language like a seed which enters the soil and germinates unseen [and] at some point it sprouts to the surface.’This view maintains the inevitability of language change; it is unseen and unconscious. The use of nature in this analogy connotes the natural and unbiased process of language change; people divulge meaning, and positive or negative connotations, from the changes. Aitchison’s view details that language change can neither be seen as progress nor decay, but as a natural process, indicative of its speakers’ ‘ceaseless flaming thought’ (von Humboldt).
9
Milroy believes that children should be taught Standard English, as he believes that it will give them more chances in later life, and while, for the most part, it is true that how you speak can be an important factor in getting a good job, amongst other things, Language controlling policies may not be such a good idea.Language is a thing which humans have a natural tendency for, which can be built up by external forces, but it is what goes on inside the brain which is most important, for example, Aitchison, categorises language change as being ‘above’ or ‘below’ the level of conscious awareness, so Labov’s New York study rhotic ‘r’ would be ‘above’ the level of conscious awareness, as New Yorkers where actively changing how they spoke, whereas Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard study would be ‘below’ the level of conscious awareness, as the language change was a subconscious one. This could link to Aitchison’s ‘crumbling castle’ parody – the idea that language was once this beautiful structure that has been deteriorating, in this case, Milroy is one of those who believe we need to stop this decline and rebuild. Of course, this would be predicated on there being a ‘golden age’ of language in the first place. Language has been changing for millennia – as Jakobson says ‘language is ebbing and flowing like the tide, neither progressing nor decaying’. This is a descriptivist view, as language change is inevitable, but isn’t a good thing or a bad thing. It just happens, and efforts to stymie this change will ultimately prove fruitless.
Perhaps being a little unfair to Milroy here: he’s not a prescriptivist – however, he does make a strong case for teaching SE – quite a subtle difference, but an important one
For the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen not to name a word of the year, describing 2020 as “a year which cannot be neatly accommodated in one single word”. Instead, from “unmute” to “mail-in”, and from “coronavirus” to “lockdown”, the eminent reference work has announced its “words of an ‘unprecedented’ year”.
On Monday, the dictionary said that there were too many words to sum up the events of 2020. Tracking its vast corpus of more than 11bn words found in web-based news, blogs and other text sources, its lexicographers revealed what the dictionary described as “seismic shifts in language data and precipitous frequency rises in new coinage” over the past 12 months.
Coronavirus, one of its words of the year, is a term that dates back to the 1960s, although it was previously mainly used by scientists. By March this year it was one of the most frequently used nouns in the English language. “Covid-19”, first recorded on 11 February in a report by the World Health Organization, quickly overtook coronavirus in frequency of use, noted the dictionary.
One of the year’s most remarkable linguistic developments, according to the OED, has been the extent to which scientific terms have entered general discourse, as we have all become armchair epidemiologists, with most of us now familiar with the term “R number”.
“Before 2020 this was a term known mainly to epidemiologists; now non-experts routinely talk about ‘getting the R down’ or ‘bringing R below 1’. Other terms that have become much more common in everyday discourse this year include ‘flatten the curve’ and ‘community transmission’,” said the dictionary.
Use of the phrase “following the science”, it added, has increased in frequency more than 1,000% compared with 2019.
Other coronavirus-related language cited by the OED includes “pandemic”, which has seen usage increase by more than 57,000% this year, as well as “circuit breaker”, “lockdown”, “shelter-in-place”, “bubbles”, “face masks” and “key workers”.
The revolution in working habits has also affected language, with both “remote” and “remotely” seeing more than 300% growth in use since March. “On mute” and “unmute” have seen 500% rises since March, while the portmanteaus “workation” and “staycation” increased by 500% and 380% respectively.
Other news events have also been reflected in language. In the early months of 2020, there were peaks in usage of “impeachment” and “acquittal”, and “mail-in” has seen an increase of 3,000%. Use of “Black Lives Matter” and “BLM” also surged, as did the term “QAnon”, up by 5,716% on last year. The phrase “conspiracy theory”, meanwhile, has almost doubled in usage between October 2019 and October 2020. Use of “Brexit”, however, has dropped by 80% this year.
“What words best describe 2020? A strange year? A crazy year? A lost year? Oxford Languages’ monitor corpus of English shows a huge upsurge in usage of each of those phrases compared to 2019,” said the OED in its report. “Though what was genuinely unprecedented this year was the hyper-speed at which the English-speaking world amassed a new collective vocabulary relating to the coronavirus, and how quickly it became, in many instances, a core part of the language.”
Previous choices for word of the year from Oxford have included “climate emergency” and “post truth”. Rival dictionary Collins chose “lockdown” for its word of the year earlier this month.
“I’ve never witnessed a year in language like the one we’ve just had,” said Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl. “The team at Oxford were identifying hundreds of significant new words and usages as the year unfolded, dozens of which would have been a slam dunk for word of the year at any other time. It’s both unprecedented and a little ironic – in a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other.”
“It’s the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language.”
That was the view of prosecutor Christopher Darden when the issue of saying the N-word came up in the 1995 murder trial of US football star OJ Simpson.
And it’s a view that many people still share today.
The BBC received more than 18,600 complaints for using the word in full in a report about a racially aggravated attack in July.
It initially defended the decision but the then-director general Tony Hall later issued an apology, saying it was a “mistake”.
This led to the BBC issuing staff with new guidance on the use of racist language in its output – which was published on Wednesday.
It now says there must be “exceptional editorial reasons to use the strongest racist terms” – and this must be personally approved by the corporation’s divisional directors.
When I hear the word I shudder. I think of my dad hearing the words, “Get the [N-word]!” while being chased through the streets of Liverpool by racist football fans as he went to watch Man City.
The word can be traced back in history to slavery.
It was in the summer of 1619 when a ship arrived in a port in Virginia carrying around 20 Africans who were chained up to be sold as slaves.
“It’s really tied into the idea that African people aren’t really human beings,” says Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at Birmingham City University.
“They were more like an animal than a human being, a beast of burden, could be bought and sold, could be thrown overboard ships and literally had no rights.
“So when the N-word is used that’s essentially what it’s used for. So I would hope most people would understand why that is deeply offensive and problematic because it still is used in that context now.”
You only have to watch films like 12 Years a Slave to see how the word was used to make black people feel inferior and unworthy.
Historically in the UK, you’ll find references to it being used as an “affectionate” name – but it still had negative connotations.
The full word was a nickname British scientist Charles Darwin and his wife Emma used in their letters to each other in the 1840s.
It was also the name given to a black Labrador which was the mascot of the Royal Airforce 617 Squadron – famously known as the Dambusters – during World War Two.
“Part of the thing about the N-word and why it was used for the dog and why it’s used in that kind of affectionate way is because we were seen to be like animals,” Prof Andrews tells me.
“There’s different versions of it where, on the one hand, the good [N-word] is a slave, they’re subservient, they do what they’re told, they’re good to their master.
“And then the other side of that is that a bad [N-word] is somebody who’s really violent, masculine and dangerous. But it’s all rooted in the same basic premise that we’re not really humans.”
After World War Two, the racism directed at black and Asian people who had emigrated to the UK from Commonwealth countries saw the word come to be used as a racial slur in everyday life – and politics.
At the 1964 election, Conservative MP Peter Griffiths won the Smethwick seat in the West Midlands after a campaign which used the slogan: “If you want a [N-word] for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour”. The slogan spelt out the full word.
This is something I didn’t know about until now, and I did GCSE history at school. It does makes me wonder if teaching these difficult moments in our past in school would help more people to understand the horrible legacy of the word and why it’s so offensive.
That election was more than 50 years ago – but the word is still used in that derogatory way today.
In 2017, Labour MP Diane Abbott revealed how she is repeatedly called the word by racists who target her with abuse through email and social media.
In 2015, a Radio 1 Newsbeat survey of 3,000 18- to 29-year-olds suggested more than a quarter of people thought it was acceptable to be used in some circumstances.
In July this year, the name of the Dambusters’ dog was removed from its gravestone as RAF Scampton “did not want to give prominence to an offensive term”.
The issue of using the word was brought up by BBC London presenter Eddie Nestor on his show in August and there were a lot of different views.
Caller Mark said discussions around the use of it had become “over-sensitised.”.
Caller Shaun said the word has been “demonised”, adding: “If you walked up and slapped me in the face I’d be offended, if you call me any name under the sun I’d just rise above it and walk on. It’s just a word, it doesn’t hurt.”
Questions that always get asked when the word comes up are “Why do some black people still use it?” and “Why can’t white people sing it if it’s in a rap song?”
It makes me think back to one of my favourite comedy films, Rush Hour, and Chris Tucker’s character – who is black – uses it to greet his black friend saying, “What’s up my [N-word]?”
Then a few minutes later, Jackie Chan’s character copies him and says it to a black person and it starts a huge fight.
You’ll also hear the word in songs by black US rappers and in UK grime music.
I came across a letter posted on Twitter written by race expert Dr Jacqui Stanford about the use of the word.
She said historically black enslaved people created a language for themselves, “often using the framework and actual words of their enslavers”.
“Black people have successfully divested the N-word of its original offence and in our struggle to survive the devastation it occasions, gave it new meaning, made it approachable, survivable,” she wrote.
I spoke to Dr Stanford about this further and she said the word was a “complex term” and she “doesn’t necessarily reject it”. During our chat she used the full word and every time I heard it I could just feel my body tensing up.
“The word is being policed because black folks did not have a choice in the matter at a certain time when it was used to their disadvantage, to abuse and to inscribe and reinforce the sense of black people as inferior by white people,” she said.
“That the word survives is an act of redemption by black folk. The word survives on the conditions that black folks have inscribed for it and nobody else can take that. And it becomes violent when other people try to take it and use it.”
In 2018, Kendrick Lamar stopped a white woman from singing his song M.A.A.D City on stage at one of his concerts after she repeatedly used the word – which is in the track.
Explaining why he did this, he told Vanity Fair: “I’ve been on this earth for 30 years and there’s been so many things a Caucasian person said I couldn’t do. Get good credit, buy a house in an urban city. So many things – ‘You can’t do that’ – whether it’s from afar or close up.
“So if I say this is my word, let me have this one word, please let me have that word.”
Dr Stanford says white people cannot use the word because its origin in slavery hasn’t been lost.
“These are people who have created the word in the first place, but who have now lost power in relation to it, they have lost the power to use it with impunity, they have lost the power to reclaim it.”
Prof Andrews adds: “If you understand the history of the word and how it’s been used, it’s not for white people to use, it’s not for anybody else to use.
“If you look at the way that we use the word, which would be more acceptable – and I’m not saying I’m pro using it – it’s about endearment, it’s about family, it’s about connections, it’s about recognising the situation that we’re in.
“So if you’re not black you can’t do that. You actually can’t use the word in the way that we use it. It’s not possible, because you’re not in that space. So any other usage of it is completely wrong.”
But there are some people who feel the word shouldn’t be used by anyone – whatever their race.
“It’s actually probably the most offensive word in English,” Labour MP David Lammy said on LBC radio in August.
He said he understands the history of reclaiming and owning the term of abuse, but added: “I say the time has come to do away with it. If black lives matter, don’t own it, reject it.”
We thought doomscrolling had it in the bag: 2020 word of the year. Certainly late on Tuesday, when it looked like Joe Biden had seriously underperformed where some expected a blowout and I was slumped in what had become a familiar repose staring at a cascade of bad news on my phone, there was plenty of doom to go around, and I was pretty resigned to scrolling through all of it.
But the mood, among Biden supporters at least, has shifted since then. After a dicey election night, a faint “maybe we can squeak this out?” feeling that emerged on Wednesday has gradually given way to confidence, and now, near certainty: Biden is going to win this thing. By Friday morning, Biden had taken the lead in four of the remaining battleground states, and one major news source, Decision Desk HQ, had seen enough: It called the election for Biden.
The networks and other major players have not called it yet—it’s not official. There are votes that have yet to be counted. And even though there’s every reason to believe those counts will favor Biden, we’re still in a holding pattern, for now. So I’m still sitting here glued to my feeds like I have been all year, but something feels … different. The doomscrolling clouds have suddenly parted. I’m constantly refreshing my timeline, but it doesn’t feel anxiety-provoking and soul-crushing like usual.
What is this unfamiliar sensation? It’s been so long: What do we even call scrolling that has uncoupled from doom? As a few Twitter users have already wondered, what’s the opposite of doomscrolling?
It’s nice to be doing whatever the opposite of doom scrolling is.
I think we may need a new word for this behavior. Youths, I am told, speak of “hopium” and “copium,” but we need a word that incorporates the never-ending mainlining of information as well as the positive or negative cast of that information. I humbly submit: gleefreshing.
‘Slut’ and ‘hussy’ used to have tame meanings. Then, like so many other feminine nouns, they came to mean ‘prostitute’
If you want to insult a woman, call her a prostitute. If you want to insult a man, call him a woman.
Nearly every word the English language offers to describe a woman has, at some point during its lifespan, been colored some shade of obscene. The main piece of evidence for this tendency toward women’s linguistic disparagement appears when you examine certain matched pairs of gendered words. Compare, for example, “sir”and “madam”: 300 years ago, both were used as formal terms of address. But with time, madamevolved to mean a conceited or precocious girl, then a kept mistress or prostitute, and then, finally, a woman who manages a brothel. All that excitement while the meaning of sirjust stuck where it was.
A similar thing happened with “master”and “mistress”: These terms came to English by way of Old French, and initially, both words indicated a person in a position of authority. Only the feminine term was contaminated over the decades to mean a sexually promiscuous woman with whom a married man, as linguist Muriel Schulz puts it, “habitually fornicates.” Meanwhile, mastercontinues to describe a dude in charge of something, like a household or an animal (or a sexual submissive, if we’re talking BDSM). Mastercan also indicate a person who has conquered a difficult skill, like karate or cooking. Tell me: Is there a wildly entertaining television competition show called MistressChef? No, there is not. (I would definitely watch that, though.)
Two types of semantic change can alter a word’s meaning over time: Pejorationis where a word starts out with a neutral or positive meaning and eventually devolves to mean something negative. The opposite is called amelioration. Feminine works usually go down the former route, while masculine works often go down the latter.
In some instances, the process of pejoration rebrands a feminine word as an insult—not for women, but for men. Take the words “buddy”and “sissy”: Today, we might use sissyto describe a weak or overly effeminate man, while buddyis a synonym for a close pal. We don’t think of these words as being related, but in the beginning, buddyand sissywere abbreviations of the words “brother”and “sister.” Over the years, the masculine term ameliorated, while the feminine term went the other way, flushing down the semantic toilet until it plunked onto its current meaning: a man who is weak and pathetic, just like a woman. Linguists have actually determined that the majority of insults for men sprout from references to femininity, either from allusions to women themselves or to stereotypically feminine men: wimp, candy-ass, motherfucker.
The word “pussy”is analogous to sissy, in that it’s a feminine word that was gradually reduced to an insult—not for women, but for men. Scholars aren’t 100% sure of pussy’s beginnings, but one theory is that it comes from an Old Norse word meaning “pouch” or “pocket.” There’s also an Oxford English Dictionary entry from the 16th century that defines the term as a girl or woman who bears similar qualities to a cat, like affability and coyness. By the 1600s, the word had surfaced as a metaphor for both a cat and a vagina. It wasn’t used to describe men until the early 20th century, when writers began associating it with tame, unaggressive males.
Few traditionally masculine terms have undergone pejoration like sissy, pussy, madam, or mistress. “Dick”is really the only prominent example — this word started as an innocent nickname for men named Richard; by Shakespeare’s time, it was extended to mean a generalized everyman (like a “Joe Shmoe”); in the late 19th century, it evolved to describe a penis (which we can likely attribute to British military slang — those dirty boys); and in the 1960s, it grew to refer to a thoughtless or contemptible person. Dick, however, is an outlier. Lad, fellow, prince, squire, and butlerare just a handful of other pejoration-worthy masculine words that have been spared.
Do feminine terms ever ameliorate? They do, but it’s often because women actively reclaim them. But finding more instances like buddy, wherein a masculine term gains a more positive status over time, is an easier task. An Old English version of the word “knight,” for example, simply meant young boy or servant before ameliorating to describe a gallant nobleman. The word “stud”graduated from a term for a male breeding animal to a slang phrase for a hot, manly dude. Even the word “dude”itself has elevated in status since the late 19th century, when it was used as an insult to describe an affected, foppish man. Today, dudeis one of the most beloved words in the English language.
linguisticus 