Language series: Is chit chat selected for survival?
On chit chat, its social importance, and its function in a process of natural selection.
Category: Language
Walk the walk, talk the talk
My friend Karen Wiederholt introduced me to a traditional learning rhyme that I had never — in 43 years — heard. It goes like this: When two vowels go out walking, the first one does the talking. Because of my interest in linguistics, the walking-talking rule set my brain in motion — I’m always interested…
Nigger: the new black
Political correctness has disgusted me since it was no longer appropriate to use the term black to describe african americans. To use oriental to describe asian (a venal euphemism that is ripe for postmodern double-code deconstruction once people admit that Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Burmese, Mongolians, et. al., don’t consider themselves even remotely kin)….
Sunlaxation
sun-lax-a-tion (sən-læk-seɪshən) n. 1. Refreshment of body or mind as a direct result of exposure to the sun. 2. The act of sunlaxing or the state of being sunlaxed. Source: The New Miskatonic Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.
“Where you at?”
I’ve held my tongue for the longest time about the demise of a simple Strunk & White grammatical rule: do not end sentences with a preposition. I’ve held my tongue because, as a student of the English language, I recognize that language — and its rules — evolve over time. Spelling changes. Syntax changes. New…
“Punting twated”
If you know what punting twated means, then you’re a visitor from an alternate universe, or are receiving signals from a dimension that is opaque to the rest of us. I was sitting in a bar, biding my time while waiting for my family to show up so we could go see King Kong. A…