English Language 2018 quotes and language examples

[TheAspiringDoc]

Sorry for not contributing earlier

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/christmas/controversial-call-for-father-christmas-to-be-renamed-person-christmas/news-story/2e8c6f6552aa5743ef614fe81963e69f

This is about political correctness and respect of gender fluidity.

[EulerFan102]

Australian colloquial language:

A great article on the supposed death of Australian colloquialisms, from Burridge and Howie Manns (25 Jan 2018). Great quotes abound.

Slang continues to flourish. It’s also clear there’s no sign that we’re about to give up our shortenings – as seppo, firie and trackie daks attest, Australians still love abbreviations.

Every few years there’s a furphy that our beloved “Strine” slang is doing a Harold Holt.

The nature of slang that there will always be a turnover of terms – today’s cobber is tomorrow’s mate, ranga for a redhead replaces blue/bluey, bogan replaces ocker and so on.

[Joseph41]

A nice little segment on dialects can be found here (with Lindy Burns and Kate Burridge). Some interesting quotes (all from Burridge - whilst in Germany!):

As a rule of thumb... we can say that as soon as dialects become not mutually understandable... then they become languages.

Accent has to do, simply, with pronunciation... it's not enough to make a separate dialect.

If it was just about... communication... we'd all be speaking the same language... we'd have a sort of vanilla English... but it's not just about that, is it? It's about a whole lot of identity stuff. So you'll always have different varieties evolving.

This segment is from 24 January, 2018. Definitely worth a listen - very interesting!

[Joseph41]

Something else I found interesting from Burridge popped up in this interview about her new book (can you tell I'm going on my daily Burridge Binge?).

"We all get very excited by new words, but I think we should, every now and then, pay attention to those words that are sort of quietly shuffled away, and bring some of them back."

[MissSmiley]

1. From Henry Gray (The Conversation):
Slang is a part of our ongoing and evergreen culture. It is a language idiom that helps make Australia, Australia
(15th Jan 2018)

2. Rod Ewins: (The Conversation)
Unfortunately, there IS one area of Aussie slang that has gone west, only partially remembered even in so-called dictionaries of Aussie slang, and that is not down to the Seppos (or at least not directly). That is the slang terms for money.
(15th Jan 2018)

[EulerFan102]

A nice quote about why people may vary their language, from Professor Roly Sussex on ABC Radio's A Word in Your Ear (4 Feb 2018, link):

“Nowadays in emails, how do you start? ... It depends on how formal it is, how well you know the person and whether there’s some serious matter that you need to address.”

[MissSmiley]

1. An opinion of the extensive North Queensland dialect dictionary released by Macquarie Dictionary recently: (11th Feb 2018)
from author Chrystopher Spicer (teaches at James Cook University):
"A lot of the slang is dropping out of the lexicon" (the dictionary's words)
"That characteristic is dropping out because of that international social media influence."
"That makes it (Australian English) a very poetic poetic language as we have an amazing number of synonyms."

2. Labor frontbencher (Western Australia) Dave Kelly says the phrase “Blind Freddy” is an affront to “those of us who are disability access conscious”, prompting a debate about the collision between Australian vernacular and political correctness.
"It's political correctness gone awry" says Liberal Democrat Aaron Stonehouse in response to this issue.
(15th Feb 2018 - The Western Australian)

[DBA-144]

How or where do i find these examples? Do i just need to apply the metalanguage stuff ive learnt to articles i read listen to on raidio, tv social media, etc. And post it here?

[MissSmiley]

How or where do i find these examples? Do i just need to apply the metalanguage stuff ive learnt to articles i read listen to on raidio, tv social media, etc. And post it here?

That's exactly right!!
Search up some things on google e.g. type in "slang in Australian English" then go to the news section (just as an example, there are plenty of articles that are not related to the news
If you see a meme that promotes linguistic variation, that'll work too!
Yup! exactly! from radio, tv, etc, just like you said!
Keep contributing!

[MissSmiley]

6th March 2018:
 Title: Qantas encourages gender-neutral language to be used by staff – so ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ will be out as staff told to avoid ‘manterruptions’

Staff will be encouraged to use the gender-neutral words on its flights via the “Spirit of Inclusion” initiative, which began earlier this month.
They have been handed a booklet with advice about which words they should avoid in future.
These include “love” and “honey”. And instead of "guys" the airline wants staff to refer to people as "folks".
The booklet advises staff that “manterruptions” -  which is when a man speaks over a woman - should be avoided.
“Husband and wife” should also be replaced by “spouse” or “partner” if possible.
Meanwhile “mum and dad” is to be avoided with “parents” used instead.
The leaflet reads: "Language can make groups of people invisible. For example, the use of the term chairman can reinforce the idea that leaders are always men.
"Words like love, honey or darling, even when used as terms of endearment, often offend. In the workplace, it is best to avoid these sorts of words."
Qantas’ people and culture group exec Lesley Grant said: “We have a long and proud history of promoting inclusion among our people, our customers and society, including support of indigenous issues, gender parity in business and marriage equality.
“We want Qantas to be an environment where everyone feels comfortable to bring their whole selves to work.”

[MissSmiley]

24th March 2018
The Australian

1. Linda Christensen who transcribes post-match (sports) interviews said:

“The Aussies, especially if you are having Australian journalists asking an Australian player, they talk on top of each other and they anticipate what they’re gonna say,” she said. “There’s little colloquialisms. And funny sayings. You know, Lleyton Hewitt. It’s just kind of fun to hear him say that he put in his ‘hahd yahds’”.
She rates Serbian players as the easiest to understand — “they speak with perfect syntax and great rhythm” — while the worst player to transcribe is none other than our own Nick Kyrgios.
“He’s one of the worst. He’s difficult. He’s fast. And very parenthetical, we say,” she said. “He’ll be saying, and then there’s a parenthetical, and then he goes on, and there’s another parenthetical. Hard to punctuate.”

2. Kate Burridge: "Women's fashion is a euphemism for fashion created by men for women."

[bodhiwhite]

Found an article where David Crystal links pronunciation to social identity...

“Pronunciation… expresses identity… gives us a clue about a speaker’s ethnic group, social class, education or occupation.” – David Crystal (13 Jan 2018)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/pronunciation-complaints-phonetics-sounds-appealing-david-crystal

[EulerFan102]

I really like this recent interview with Richmond debutant Jack Higgins (vid here), partly for his infectious enthusiasm, but also the nice use of the footy slang snag (which means goal, coming from the rhyming slang sausage roll).

2. Kate Burridge: "Women's fashion is a euphemism for fashion created by men for women."

I've gotta say I can't find anything on the internet attributing this to Burridge; are you sure it's a Burridge-ism?

Found an article where David Crystal links pronunciation to social identity...

“Pronunciation… expresses identity… gives us a clue about a speaker’s ethnic group, social class, education or occupation.” – David Crystal (13 Jan 2018)

Great example!

[Joseph41]

How Queer Eye is refashioning the English language (26 April, 2018)
This article is about how the TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is having an influence on the ways in which language is used in everyday situations. There's a particular emphasis on language change in pronouns, which is unusual by virtue of it being a closed word class. Quotes:

The Queer Eye franchise is no stranger to coining new words: in 2003, the original series popularised the word zhoosh, meaning "to finesse or tweak".

Zhoosh (sometimes tszuj or joosh) exposes a difficulty in English orthography: our alphabet has no specific letter representing the word's initial and final sound.

One of Van Ness's more creative abbreviations — where, in Van Ness-speak, the phrase struggles to function becomes strugs to func — fits perfectly in the social media age, where many proudly bray about just how hard adulting is.

But it is Van Ness's inventive pronoun use that is of most interest to the structure of English.

"I know hyaluronic acid doesn't sound like a healing restorative angel baby," he writes in one Instragram post, "but she really is".

As an inanimate object without any visible gender, conventional grammar would suggest hyaluronic acid should take the third person singular pronoun it, rather than she.

For much of the past century, the perception of the English pronoun system as "fixed" has led to any mooted changes being accompanied by a degree of social anxiety.

They is another pronoun whose use betrays high anxiety. When they, conventionally a plural form, refers to a singular antecedent, reactions can be spicy.

The Words For Gaming In Different Languages (23 April, 2018)
This piece focuses on the slang (jargon?) used by gamers across the world. It also touches a little on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is an extremely interesting area. Quotes:

Like any community in the world, people who play video games have collaboratively created their own language and slang. Many of these words are international, but different languages have different ways of talking about play.

Anyone who writes about games is constantly brushing up against the limitations of the words we use to describe them ("gameplay", "mechanics", "content", "consumer", "level" - even "gamer"). I strongly believe that the way that we talk about games actually limits the way we think about them.

Such is the dominance of the English language in game development across the western world that many languages simply use the English loan word when referring to people who play video games: Gamer. Sometimes it's incorporated into native syntax - in German, there are expressions like "Gamersprache" (a word for "gaming slang").

Another cool bit of gaming slang from Paraguay: If someone on your team is no good, they might be called a "paquete" or "paquetón" - a package/big package. Geddit? Because you have to carry them.

There's more variation when you look at the different words for finishing, beating or completing a game, and this can reveal some interesting cultural differences. Even in the English-speaking world, North Americans talk about "beating" a game where Brits talk about "finishing" one.

Interestingly, because gamer culture is primarily located online, there's much less variation between gamer culture and language across the globe than there is in, say, sport, or other primarily offline pursuits - but it also means we speak a shared language.

RPG might be an English acronym, but its meaning is understood all over the world.

[MissSmiley]

I've gotta say I can't find anything on the internet attributing this to Burridge; are you sure it's a Burridge-ism?

I'm really very sorry! It's not a Burridge-ism. I must have looked at the wrong image or must have collected it wrongly in my Burridge tab....
It's by Andrea Dworkin, an American feminist, so I guess this quote won't do!
Thanks a lot EulerFan102 for correcting me!
Sorry guys!