The Deterioration of Language: Mispronunciations and Loss of Meaning

Hello all,

I love the English language. I love that there are so many different ways to express one thought. I love that the process of putting one's thoughts down can be an art in itself. I can't even pretend to be in the same class as some of the talented and learned wordsmiths who inhabit this site (you know who you are) but you inspire me every day and I have fun with it. To that end, I want to express my frustration with what I see as a deterioration in our language. There are always the minor irritants with otherwise smart, educated people who mispronounce words. One of my favorites is "jewelry". The word is not "jooleree"! Then there is "realtor". The word is not "reelator"!! I also have a quibble with lazy speech. We have become so lazy or time-strapped that we have to ask the question "Are you coming with?", coming with who? Me? Maybe we are going to go somewhere that will be "so fun", will that be anything like going somewhere that would be "so much fun"? Presumably, the time saved from having to add those two little words will allow you more time to do something important like text. These are only my personal little bugaboos.
I feel there is a much more insidious deterioration in our language, and that is in how some words have started to lose their meaning. The word "news" seems to be one of the victims. News should be a factual, unbiased, unvarnished reporting of events. Unfortunately, the existence of organizations like Fox News has made the meaning of the word unclear to many. How can you have "conservative news"? It's a contradiction in terms, and yet many consider Fox News a reliable news source. It is if all you want to hear is the "news" that panders to your viewpoint. It is if you only want to hear the real news stories delivered with just the right amount of spin so as not to offend your conservative sensibilities. We end up with people who think there is such a thing as "alternative facts"!!
Another victim is the word "truth". There is a huge campaign of very well-intentioned people out there urging us all to "live your own truth". There is no "your truth" or "my truth", there is only "the truth". What these people are trying to articulate is the desire to live their lives in a way that honors their own values and ideals. That is admirable, and we should all do it, unfortunately it diminishes and devalues the meaning of the word "truth" to the point that it becomes meaningless.
I would love to hear others' take on this subject.

Terry

Good day, Delgrl.

I have also noticed a marked deterioration in proper use of the English language. In our era, I believe a good deal of the blame lies in the desire for "(more) instant gratification", aided and abetted by a greater reliance on technological advances, such as the computer, cell phones, etc. Generally, have the lives of human beings become too easy? Have our minds become lazy due to a lack of conscious challenge?

Here is a rhetorical question for consideration: When did news become entertainment, and entertainment become news?

Lily17

I agree completely with both of you! I particularly lament the death of the adverb. I cringe when I hear someone say "That's real nice." I just want to correct them. I find bad grammar so distracting that I actually stop listening to what is being said, and focus solely on the bad grammar! I once had a psychology prof who refused to mark papers that had 3 or more spelling/grammatical errors. His first language was not English, and he maintained that if he could produce error-free work in a second language, we could do it in our first language. While I still think that was somewhat harsh, I can see his point. (I passed that course!)

Laurie

Hi Terry and Lily.  I, too, love the English language and  wonder about the entertainment of news which I'll address separately.  We do have some folks here who use the language beautifully.  We also have some great communicators who might not get straight "A"s in grammar.  Though I respect the rules I sometimes deliberately violate them to emphasize a thought.  Sometimes perfectly correct grammar sounds weird like the "him, her, I, me" associations.  The reason for which we're using the language should influence our choice of words and how we use them.  One might say this has nothing to do with ostomies but, if not for our interest in ostomies, we probably wouldn't be discussing anything with each other.

i think we're off to a good start if you ignore my punctuation.  

Respectfully,

Mike

Hey Laurie, i'm real sorry I missed your reply before I submitted mine.  Really!  

Seriously, my experience was similar to yours.  I learned how to use English correctly from my calculus professor who escaped his homeland Russia only two years earlier.  His accent didn't deter him from teaching higher math effectively to us English speaking Americans.  

With respect,

Mike

Reading these comments is music to my ears. I’ve been a grammar nazi for decades. I’ve struggled with the confrontation between what I regard as the deterioration of our language versus the recognition that it is a living, breathing, EVER-CHANGING thing. I believe the corrosion we’ve witnessed is a result of the general dumbing-down of our citizenry. The increase of tech such as computer phones and degrees online has produced lazy, deficient thinking. The language infection that frosts me the most is the word “like” used as punctuation. As in… “I’m, like, really a smart person.” (Trump) Poor language skills are much worse and more irritating than mere differences in accent. Localized patois has a reasonable explanation analogous to the difference between languages. I must admit, however, that I was well over thirty before I realized that a Southern accent didn’t automatically reflect stupidity.

Hello Terry. 

Thank you for inviting us to comment upon the English language. I have met many people who feel strongly that the English  language is deteriorating as we 'progress' into the 21st century. However, I took a different view when I started learning French and one of the first things that the teacher (online) said was: "English is mostly French - spoken badly".

I will admit that I did not recieve anything like a 'good' basic education. Thus, my written and spoken English left much to be desired. Indeed, when I attended college, I paid a typist to produce all my dictated work in an acceptable form so that I would not be exposed as semi-illiterate. Having subsequently learned a little more about what is and is not 'acceptable', I have leaned towards expressing myself in rhyme rather than prose, for in this genre, there is rarely such a thing as 'bad' English. As long as the meaning is explicit, we can 'get away' with almost anything.

It was an eye-opener for me when the Open University advertised for students on the premise that when students do not learn, it is most likely the teaching that is at fault rather than the student.

Best wishes

Bill   

An interesting topic and my thanks to all players :)

At school I hated English and struggled to get a pass mark. With maturity, I gradually improved to an OK level.

I have some pet hates. The abandonment or abuse of the apostrophe ranks near the top of my hates. There are regular appalling examples in daily life and especially galling when in an advertisement, either in print or on TV. The continual errors in advertising can become the English norm for those too readily influenced.

Tautology ranks as my number one hate. Advertising is riddled with examples. I am sick to death of 'pre-order' and yet to discover how one can 'order' before one places an 'order'. It is merely sales hype implying that you can somehow beat the crowd by 'pre-ordering'. Much the same is 'pre-booking' and presumably implies that somehow one can jump a queue of people. The simple fact is you cannot book before you book, so to pre-book is impossible.

Other very popular but annoying examples are 'mix together', 'cool down', 'heat up', and the silly advertising extreme of getting an 'extra added bonus'.

My third one is a lack of paragraphs. Apologies here where appropriate :) It's common on the fora I visit to see quite lengthy posts. There could be 50 or more lines without a para. With small fonts, it can be challenging to read without losing one's place. Many fora members state they will not read such posts. They place arbitrary limits such as a 5-line maximum.

Injecting regular paras costs nothing. I'd rather see too many than too few, or especially none at all.

So that is my thruppence worth from down-under :)

Regards,

Tom

One thing you mentioned particularly struck me as relevant to this site:  the tiny font size.  Drives me to distraction.  Also, inability to use italics or boldface.  If the webmaster is reading this, what do you say?  [Add: I just queried him directly, so we'll see.]

Wow! Someone who actually can correctly use "fora" and "tautology" in a sentence. You have just made my day.

Laurie

Welcome to the real world, people.

Like it or not, the English language as us "senior" ostomates knew it is dying before our very eyes.

Get used to it.

Text "English" is here to stay.

In my country, the standard of English teachers in primary schools has never been lower. Universities are rolling out graduates with appalling reading, writing, and spelling skills.

How many of the present-day generation know anything about nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, etc., let alone how to spell them?

Unfortunately, just like newspapers in years to come, correct English will not exist. A "device" is all that will be required.

"Four years ago I couldn't spell engineer, now I am one."

Keep well.

V.J.

Laurie wrote, "Wow! Someone who actually can correctly use "fora" and "tautology" in a sentence. You have just made my day."  

I'm happy for you, Laurie, but for me those words caused me two more trips to the dictionary.  Henry's "patois" forced me there first.  Would that be similar to a provincialism and different from a colloquialism?  

I'm not actually (instead of "really") looking for an answer but just trying to show I know  a little about this stuff.  Like very little.

Still looking for subjects, predicates and a way of getting rid of so many commas.  Then there's syntax.  Holy crap!  This can get like real wacky.

Mike

PS:  I counted around 16 errors but my math ain't no good neither.

Hi Laurie,   The use of "real" instead of "really" is a pet peeve of mine too.   This goes all the way back to my grade eight math teacher who also spoke English as a second language.   His English was perfect and precise.   He never used contractions and his most common admonition was "do not do that!!".   One day in class he told me he thought I hadn't tried hard enough to solve a problem on a test he had given.   I told him I had tried "real hard" to solve it.   He answered "you tried REAL hard?" and I emphatically insisted that I had indeed tried "REAL hard".   He paused and then said "Are you trying to tell us you tried REALLY hard?". He embarrassed me in front of the whole class and I might not have done so well in math (I did scrape by) but I never made the "real" versus "really" mistake again!

Terry

Hi Mike,   I too take some liberties with the language.   I also make mistakes, some that I catch and I'm sure many that I don't. I can only hope that when people read my unintentional mistakes they misinterpret them as "artistic license"!! Ha! Probably not.

Terry

Hi Henry, I was hoping you would have something interesting to say and you didn't disappoint. The irony is also not lost on me that in a post I titled "The English Language" I only made it to the third sentence before making a punctuation error (since corrected) and I'm sure there are more. The important thing for me is that I respect the language and I do try. This forum is a great opportunity for me to keep my brain stimulated and who knows, maybe it will stave off Alzheimer's for a while if nothing else!

Terry

Hi Tom,  Another example that has always driven me up the wall are the signs posted outside of gas stations here advertising "herring roe eggs".  This is bait for sale for those who aren't in the know!

Terry

G'day Terry,

Have you ever bothered to query the 'roe eggs' case?

I have a few more common tautologies:

Frozen ice
Over-exaggeration
Reiterate again
Hot water heater.
Necessary requirement
New innovation

The last one is popular in these technology intense days.

One almost everybody wrongly uses is 'PIN number'. Using 'PI number' perhaps would have people thinking of 3.14159... so maybe stick to just 'PIN'.

What bugs me daily are the weather forecasters on the TV news who consistently insist that tomorrow will 'warm up' or 'cool down'. Eventually they may resort to 'expecting wet rain'.

I searched and found a few famous examples:

• "It's no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another." - George H. W. Bush
• "Our nation must come together to unite." - George W. Bush
• "It's deja vu all over again." - Yogi Berra
• "They are simply going to have to score more points than the other team to win the game" - John Madden
• "If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure." - Dan Quayle
• "Smoking can kill you, and if you've been killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." - Brooke Shields.

Tom

So Terry, if only for your creativity you deserve perpetual artistc licensure.  Your use of the language deserves legitimate appreciation even if it's the Canadian version. 

Why do I feel you northernfolk are smarter than us or smarter than we are smart?

Mike

Tom, i've been using 3.1416 for about 65 years.  Do I need to do those calculations over again once more?  Really?   

Mike

Hey, Mike! A trip to the dictionary might be the best travel experience you'll have during a pandemic. I mean, where else are you going to go? 

Your story about the Russian math prof made me smile. My son had a similar experience in his undergrad, also with a Russian math prof. It took him a while to adjust to his thick accent. The nickel finally dropped one day: he realized that when his prof said "lance" he actually meant "length". That was a Rosetta Stone moment. He was able to decipher him after that.

Another tautology example that makes me grind my teeth is "free gift". 

Laurie

Hello Mike.

Thanks for the reference to Pi as it provides me with an excuse to resurrect a rhyme reminding me of my schooldays and my two (now long-deceased) brothers.

Best wishes

Bill

 

WHY PI ?

For all the world, I can’t see why.
I would ever remember Pi.
A witty ditty, etched on my mind.
Pi equals three point one four one five nine.

A law, a cannon and a theme.
A nightmarish recurring dream.
What possessed me to learn this line.
Pi = 3.14159.

It’s an obsession, a compulsion.
Invoking repulsion.
Remove it from this memory of mine.
Pi = 3.14159.

I’ve come to think I was a fool.
To have learnt this thing in school.
What use was it, all this time.
Pi = 3.14159.

A circle’s area might be fine.
For Pi = 3.14159.
But there’s no formula yet designed.
For Pi made circles in my mind.

Circling, surfacing, spiralling round.
Repressing, depressing, getting me down.
Show me the skills to disentwine.
From Pi = 3.14159.

Who taught me this, I’ll kill the swine.
Pi = 3.14159.
Now all is gone - or in decline.
Except for Pi = 3.14159.

It’s not even right, nor is it true.
At the end of the nine, there should be a two.
Repeating on and on- a non rhyme too.
Pi = 3.14159 2 → 141592 →141592→to infinity.

                                                 B. Withers (2000)

 

Brilliant, Bill.  Unless I'm reading more into this than you intended, I think you involved the math, science and all the liberal arts in expressing your feelings towards this two letter phenomenon.

Another great rhyme.

Mike

Hey Mike,   I think you meant to say "really wacky" right??!!

Hey Tom,   I have to plead guilty to the long paragraph offense but in my defense, I had posted it in a Word document first with a space making two paragraphs.   For whatever reason, when I copied and pasted it onto this site, the space was removed.   So you have my interest.   I googled "roe eggs" and "roe eggs case".   What am I looking for?

Cheers,

Terry

Terry,

Surely, you jest! : )

However, on the off chance you truly do not know that to which Tom is referring: fish roe are fish eggs. And fish eggs are roe. As such, "roe eggs" is another term fraught with redundancy. I believe that was Tom's point.

Lily17

Hi Lily,   If you look back on this post you will see that it was me who used the "roe eggs" as an example of something that has always driven me nuts, because it is such an obvious redundancy, so I was wondering why Tom was suggesting I google "roe eggs".   I still am wondering!

Terry

Fight... fight.... Trump and Biden debate... ha ha :)

Sorry, it's my fault for a lack of context :(

Terry wrote... Hi Tom, Another example that has always driven me up the wall are the signs posted outside of gas stations here advertising "herring roe eggs". This is bait for sale for those who aren't in the know!

Then I wrote... G'day Terry, Have you ever bothered to query the 'roe eggs' case?

So the above was my shorthand for... Terry, have you ever bothered to go back to these gas stations and ask "what the hell are they on about?" Don't you gas station people who make signs realise that roe = eggs!"

Now away from tautology to spelling errors. I saw a sign a while ago that stated 'under new management'. I figured they were off to a bad start :)

Regards,

Tom

Hi Tom,   Ah, now I get it!   There would be no point in questioning it as every gas station that sells bait uses the same sign.   It's universal in these parts and I've always found it annoying.   I've spent a lot of time around fishermen and even dated one many years ago.   If you said "roe eggs" to one of them, if they were being really polite they might try to hide their eye rolling.

Quite off the topic, but an example of how easily our language can be used to confuse and entertain at the same time is a sign I used to see outside of a local store that did "esthetics".   It said "ears pierced while you wait".   I always wondered to myself what the alternative to waiting would be, perhaps leaving your ears there and coming back for them later?   I think what they were trying to say was "no appointment necessary"!!

Terry

Ears pierced while you wait - hysterical!!

Laurie

Terry,

I like your eerie story. :)

Esthetics was a new word to me, so I had to look it up and found it is the American version of aesthetics.

I thought I knew most American spelling variations, e.g. where the letter 'u' is dropped as in colour, but esthetics really had me stumped.

Immediately though, I wonder how it is pronounced without the 'A' beginning? We say ass-thet-ix and presumably you say ess-thet-ix?

By the way, Terry... 'you wondered to yourself' reminded me of how almost everybody will say 'and I thought to myself'. Is there any other way of thinking? :)

Regards,

Tom