Language, by its very nature, is always growing, expanding, and changing rapidly. The history of human language has seen many alterations, expansions, and reinventions of languages. With the evolution of language came the elitist prescriptivism movement, characterized by a rejection of new linguistic changes, often informed by classism, racism, misogyny, and a fear of change. Many linguistic developments have been created by young people, especially teenage girls, including the linguistic trend “vocal fry”, commonplace among many young women. This trend has angered many, as well as modern grammatical changes effected by teenagers, for instance words like “like” and “literally”. Rather than these changes being abominations to the English language,
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Teenagers invent language so quickly and so contemporary that older generations cannot always understand them. In France, teenagers invented a slang language called “verlan” wherein they would reverse certain words so their parents couldn’t understand them. Verlan, which started as a form of rebellion against the older generations, is now commonplace in young people 's vocabularies in French-speaking countries. In the United States, a new linguistic trend among young women has emerged called “vocal fry”. It is characterized by a compression of the vocal cords, reducing the airflow through the larynx and the frequency of vibrations, causing speech to sound rattled or "creaky." It can be observed in Zooey Deschanel, Kim Kardashian, and Britney Spears, as well as in college-aged women across the country. NPR’s Bob Garfield called this phenomenon “annoying”, “vulgar”, and “repulsive”. This attitude toward vocal fry can be seen frequently, especially in the older generations. New York times commenter “Parkslopecharlie” says of the phenomenon, “If this is leading the culture, God help us all.” Despite their objections, vocal fry is spreading and becoming mainstream. Says Carmen Frought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College, “If women do something like uptalk or vocal fry, it’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid. The truth is this: Young women take linguistic features and use them as …show more content…
Many words take on new definitions entirely or begin to be used in new ways. Such is the case with the word “literally”, whose modern usage has sparked a lot of debate in the recent years. While the common definition of “literally” is “in a literal manner”, a new definition meaning “extremely” or “very” has become popular recently. This new definition has seen a lot of use from young people, being used informally in a sentence such as, “my dad is literally going to kill me” or “I’m literally going crazy”. This new usage has angered many people, for instance actuarialoutpost.com member abt5 who writes, “people who use ‘literally’ to mean ‘very’ NEEDS TO DIE” and twitter user @magnus72 who posted “We did it guys! We killed English!” in response to literally’s new definition being added to the dictionary. The largest complaint about the new usage is that it conveys the direct opposite meaning to “in a literal manner”, which is seen as the “original” or “correct” usage. In reality, the first definition for the word “literal” is “relating to letters, or the alphabet”. In learning this, we must accept that the meanings for words change over time, and that words can expand in meaning. Another word that has sparked a lot of debate is the word “like”. The first meaning in English that this word took on is “alike” or “similar”, stemming from the Old Norse word “líkr”. Today it has over a dozen dictionary definitions, existing as
Teenagers invent language so quickly and so contemporary that older generations cannot always understand them. In France, teenagers invented a slang language called “verlan” wherein they would reverse certain words so their parents couldn’t understand them. Verlan, which started as a form of rebellion against the older generations, is now commonplace in young people 's vocabularies in French-speaking countries. In the United States, a new linguistic trend among young women has emerged called “vocal fry”. It is characterized by a compression of the vocal cords, reducing the airflow through the larynx and the frequency of vibrations, causing speech to sound rattled or "creaky." It can be observed in Zooey Deschanel, Kim Kardashian, and Britney Spears, as well as in college-aged women across the country. NPR’s Bob Garfield called this phenomenon “annoying”, “vulgar”, and “repulsive”. This attitude toward vocal fry can be seen frequently, especially in the older generations. New York times commenter “Parkslopecharlie” says of the phenomenon, “If this is leading the culture, God help us all.” Despite their objections, vocal fry is spreading and becoming mainstream. Says Carmen Frought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College, “If women do something like uptalk or vocal fry, it’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid. The truth is this: Young women take linguistic features and use them as …show more content…
Many words take on new definitions entirely or begin to be used in new ways. Such is the case with the word “literally”, whose modern usage has sparked a lot of debate in the recent years. While the common definition of “literally” is “in a literal manner”, a new definition meaning “extremely” or “very” has become popular recently. This new definition has seen a lot of use from young people, being used informally in a sentence such as, “my dad is literally going to kill me” or “I’m literally going crazy”. This new usage has angered many people, for instance actuarialoutpost.com member abt5 who writes, “people who use ‘literally’ to mean ‘very’ NEEDS TO DIE” and twitter user @magnus72 who posted “We did it guys! We killed English!” in response to literally’s new definition being added to the dictionary. The largest complaint about the new usage is that it conveys the direct opposite meaning to “in a literal manner”, which is seen as the “original” or “correct” usage. In reality, the first definition for the word “literal” is “relating to letters, or the alphabet”. In learning this, we must accept that the meanings for words change over time, and that words can expand in meaning. Another word that has sparked a lot of debate is the word “like”. The first meaning in English that this word took on is “alike” or “similar”, stemming from the Old Norse word “líkr”. Today it has over a dozen dictionary definitions, existing as