Language attrition

Monday, June 12, 2006 » link thought

Meanwhile, in the UK: "The word 'gay' now means 'rubbish' in modern playground-speak and need not be offensive to homosexuals."

Well, that's good to know. I'm eagerly awaiting the day it's acceptable to call someone a faggot for cutting me off without signaling. It's a nice thought to declare that the language has evolved and we're over all the loaded connotations a word can have, but it's still pretty idealistic. It just distresses me because instead of people being more conscious and informed of what they're saying, they're opting for a questionable path-of-least-resistance excuse and hoping everyone else buys it.

Somewhat less controversial examples of dictionaries making concessions:

alright - A hideous and depressingly widespread hybrid of two totally unconfusing words. Spelling it like this looks like you're typing drunk. Whenever I see this in some high-visibility ad or article, I hope that a copy editor somewhere is getting fired.

literally - Thanks to everybody propagating incorrect use of this word, many dictionary entries for this now have a secondary listing explaining that it can also mean "figuratively." How many words in the English language are their own antonym??

WALLAH! - OK, probably not in any dictionaries, but please. Your flourish is undermined by your illiteracy.