Like is Out, Yeah is In.

 'Like' on the way out. 'Like: __' was often used, for example, as a device of indirect quotation, where the quoted material is first-person, and one acts out the speech expressing what one thought or felt on the occasion. "Like: 'What is this guy doing?'"; "Like: 'I was all woo-woo", you know?'. 

At around the same time, 'Yeah!' has come in, or rather has come to play a new role. In this usage, it is not a response to the interlocutor's statement or question, but occurs within one's overall speech, mostly but not entirely as a space-filler, between sentences. It is used among other things to announce a change of topic, or just to sustain a positive vibe while keeping the floor -- to decide either on the next topic, or to keep on with the present one. Often it signals that the next utterance will sum up the previous ones. 

While I'm at it, the use of the term 'obviously' -- in this role it has been around a while -- is interesting. I hear it as: 'What I'm about to say perhaps goes without saying, but nevertheless I say it just to be absolutely sure there is no misunderstanding, and it's worth saying for the sake of what I'm going to say after.'  

Invertebrate and Inveterate, Incredible and Incredulous, Prelude and Predicate

My diagnosis of (one aspect of) changes in language runs as follows. A relatively common word is in use (say 'outrageous', 'uninterested', or 'deny') and another relatively rare word that expresses a different, typically more complicated meaning, which often sounds similar to the first one (say 'egregious',  'disinterested', or 'refute'). Perhaps imagining a certain show of erudition, people begin to use the latter word for the former, not being aware that the latter does not mean the same as the former. But then, if the virus spreads sufficiently, it does means the former. So to speak. (I've discussed those particular examples previously; the links are on the upper right). 

So three newish examples. The first fits the pattern to a T. I've heard it before, but here is a recent, public example from the teevee. Victoria MacDonald of Channel Four News used 'incredulous' for 'incredible' (or 'really incredible!'), saying 'It was really incredulous.'  But of course -- assuming the old meaning -- strictly speaking, that is ungrammatical nonsense:  You can say x finds the thing incredible, but not that x finds the thing incredulous. What does make sense is that x is incredulous at the thing. The incredible thing vs. the incredulous person (in linguistics, you can say the agent and patient roles are reversed).  The second doesn't fit the pattern, but fits it as it were in reverse.  Twice now I have heard 'invertebrate' being used where surely what was meant was 'inveterate'. Now all people know the word 'invertebrate', and very few really know the word 'inveterate'. My diagnosis is that the person is vaguely aware that there is such word, but can't quite recall it, and the only word they know that approximates it is 'invertebrate'. If anything 'inveterate' connotes unchanging rigidity where 'invertebrate' connotes lassitude, but there it is.

The third example is closer. A person is speaking about a man preparing a group for the main event, and intends something like 'prelude', or 'preface', or perhaps 'preliminary', but says 'He laid down a predicate for the event'. 

Tiny Things

Some minor malfunctions I've witnessed (some recently): 

one in the same for one and the same

I could care less for I couldn't care less (this has been around for a long time, I think)

intensive purposes for intents and purposes 

nip in the butt for nip in the bud (!) 

could of for could have (perhaps this too has been with us for long time)

deep seeded resentment for deep seated resentment (this is favourite of mine) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Generalisation, Holding Beliefs, Single Persons, and Winning

Another Dodge: The Particular to the General

This is another one which I'm surprised isn't recognized and called out by Nick Robinson and his R4 cohorts more often.  A presenter is interviewing some Tory bigwig, asking for a response to a EDL rally which descended into a fracas. 'Let me be clear: No violence should be tolerated', says the Tory. What's wrong with that? Who would deny it? The problem is that implicit in the initial line of questioning is that there is a particular problem with the EDL--that perhaps they should be disbanded or steps should taken against its leaders, or something, and one might think that the Tories in particular are likely to bear a certain responsibility. And of course many EDL members or sympathisers do vote Tory; the Tory is leery of offending them. The Tory responds to the question by generalising the issue, thereby diverting the questioner from a particular sore point. (It's a bit like 'What aboutism'.) In the cut-and-thrust atmosphere of a R4 interview, the necessary time and effort required to pursue that issue may be too great, as well the Tory knows. 

Holding Cognitive States

One has emotions. One has beliefs. But sometimes people speak of 'holding' emotions, of 'holding' beliefs. If find this a little strange. I can't help but think that implies that the action is more voluntary than it can possibly be, perhaps with a bit of irrationality mixed in. 'He holds the belief that she is faithful to him', as if the belief were like a dog whose leash one holds, or like a suspect one holds in a jail cell. What can be 'held' is perhaps a slogan, a form of words; one can decide stick to the words even if one has doubts. For emotions, is there an equivalent way of excuse? Maybe: maybe we can speak of a man as 'clinging' to his sadness, as 'holding on' to his sadness, when it is unhealthy to be sad for so long. We say: Snap out of it!  

Families

Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and others seldom speak of ordinary people and their financial struggles (with inflation, taxes, etc.), but rather they speak of the plight of 'families'.  What of the many people who live alone? There are I believe nine million such people. Nine million people who don't exist! Many of them not only pay taxes etc., but vote. 

Winning the t -- d 

We speak of 'winning the thread', when some commenter in social media or a chatroom makes an especially perceptive, and typically witty post, one that can't be topped. But all of a sudden, people now speak of 'winning the trend'. I can't help but think that this got started through mis-reading or mis-hearing the earlier 'winning the thread', and for some reason it caught on. If that's what happened, then the phenomenon is not so dire as what happened with 'refute' or 'disinterest', but still it is retrograde, for unlike the straightforward 'thread', it is a little hazy what 'trend' means here.