Murdering the English Language

Now, I'm no professor of linguistics, and I understand that a language evolves, but is it just me that gets annoyed by the blatant raping of our Mother tongue?

Today's example came from BBC presenter Clare Balding, who suggested that the best way of staying in touch with all of the sporting events in 'The Winters' was by using the red button... THE WINTERS! By this she meant to say the Winter Olympics...

During the 2012 Summer Olympics (not the Summers) the media invented two new verbs - 'to medal' and 'to podium'. I was shaking my head then and still do so now. This is not so much language evolving as language being kicked in the head.

Even us birders are at it. My first item of evidence is the use of 'rares' to denote a species of rare bird. At least text speak has yet to enter general printed communication or the spoken word, ffs...

soz...

(I couldn't help but use Google (note - not googled) to look up 'soz', and the Urban Dictionary tells me the following:


Nonsensical internet slang term for "sorry", used by illiterate morons who for some reason substitute a “z” for “rry”, the latter of which would take an entire quarter of a second to type out.
"OMG, soz about that."

"Shut the f*ck up."

 I quite like that...)

Comments

Factor said…
Tomoz is another one (tomorrow apparently) and meh. Meh? The most flaccid, nondescript, irritating slang word I can think off. Really, really annoying. A sound, and not a very nice sound, rather than a word.
12 February 2014 at 17:47
Steve Gale said…
Yes Neil, meh... what on earths all that about?
12 February 2014 at 20:59
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