What's Your Favourite New Word?

What’s Your Favourite New Word?

May 29^th 2014 Sally Ormond changing language, english language, evolving language, new words

English is a language that’s constantly evolving.

Yes, you have the pedants in one corner that believe change is bad and that we should still be speaking ye olde English forever more and that grammar should never be fiddled with. But surely change should be embraced. After all, today’s world is a whole lot smaller than it used to be. Our culture is being constantly influenced by others bringing with it changes in our language, outlook and society. And let’s face it, Latin never evolved and look what happened to that – it died.

Evolution has shaped (and continues to shape) the flora and fauna around us refining it to cope with its environment that’s also constantly changing, so why should we be in uproar when our language evolves?

Personally, I’m all for change. The language of days gone by is no longer suitable for today’s world.

I remember my parents telling me that when they were at school they had grammar drilled into them with whole lessons dedicated to the subject. But when I was at school grammar was something we were supposed to ‘pick up as we went along’ either from corrections to our work, or from reading books.

The cold hard fact is that language changes and just to prove it, here’s a snippet from a recent edition of i looking at new words that potentially, could be added to the Collins English Dictionary based on the votes of Twitter users:

new words

Which one get’s your vote?

Whether you like it or not our language is changing.

Yes, in my twilight years I’ll probably be moaning about the latest technology and the LOLs and LMFOAs and WTFs (or whatever their equivalents will be by then) that are permeating every day speech. But I reserve the right to be cantankerous and outspoken.