Comments

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  Hal Peat March 28, 2011 at 5:05am

  @Ed Wetschler - you can certainly turn me into the SATW disciplinary committee the second you read me incorporating "totally" or any other hot modifier into my writing - I'd deserve it:)
  
  As to the New York accent, I listen to it just with great affection nowadays.:) There's nothing special or real about being genericized. For me, accents evoke time, place, specificity, and especially memories.
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  Allan Lynch March 28, 2011 at 4:34am

  Oops. Obviously I need to read my posts before posting.
  
  Made multiple trips
  It aired for months
  how ATT wasn't
  
  Blush.
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  Allan Lynch March 28, 2011 at 12:55am

  I hear OMG spoken as dialogue in quite a few television programs.

   

  Evelyn and I (added by another friend from the St. Kitts trip) could probably form a hit squad to garotte the 'like' people. Three years ago I sat at a table with the editor of a trendy magazine who spoke only Valley Girl. Cripes, the Valley is so passe. Thank gawd the meal was a buffet so several of us many multiple trips just to get away from this non-stop mouth.

   

  A few years ago there was an ATT commercial which cracked me up. It aided for months. ATT was being more personal. So they had this young man, who was identified as an account manager, speaking how how ATT wasn't the big company that didn't care. It was just a lot of people working to make communications better. Bottom line, "it's just two people interfacing with each other." (Have I mentioned the 14-month battle I've been having with Bell?)
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  Ed Wetschler March 28, 2011 at 12:34am

  Hal, as one who was born and raised in New York City, I see little downside to the loss of accents. Or mine, anyway. But hark! You've said something else that I want to address: "the longer-term incorporation of expressions and words into the mainstream of the language." That leads me to ask, to what extent have you folks incorporated shorthand like IMHO or the short list of hot modifiers (e.g. "totally") into your travel writing? 
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  Hal Peat March 28, 2011 at 12:04am

  @Jose - yes, language has to evolve, but I think there are two somewhat separate if also related phenomena we're discussing here.  One is the use of contemporary expressions that are mostly transitory and drop away, the other is the longer-term incorporation of expressions and words into the mainstream of the language.  The latter phenomenon has a filtering process involved - and I'm not sure myself what exactly that consists of, not being a social linguist, or a linguistic sociologist, or some such expert.  But I think what some of us may be taking exception to is the current direction of the former phenomenon, and who and what has control over the use of expression - or lack of.  Another extraordinary part of that aforementioned dumbing down of language is the complete absence of an regional intonation or accent - so you now have a totally atonal and generationally homogenized non-accent.  thus, you can be listening to someone who was born and raised in Connecticut or Florida or Oregon and they will all sound like they live right next to each other.  Epic horror.  I mean, it almost makes me prefer to listen to that woman who can see all the way to Russia from Alaska, and her intonation is like listening to fingernails running across a blackboard.  More so totally horrific, but genuine in its own dark way.
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  José Balido March 27, 2011 at 10:46pm

  Great comments on the OMG-in-the-dictionary phenomenon, guys. I just checked, BTW, in Merriam-Webster.com and found that they too include all these abbreviations. And I think (do correct me if I'm wrong) that dictionaries have long included important or frequently used abbreviations and acronyms. But that doesn't make them words. They are abbreviations used in writing. I doubt even the hippest text messager would say "O-M-G" in conversation, unless s/he were being intentionally cute or obnoxious. And IMHO, to be a full-fledged word with all rights and responsibilities inherent thereto, a word must be used, or potentially usable, in spoken language. Now, I know some of you are going to say that the passé simple in French is a verb tense only used in literary writing, and yes, I'll agree, these are bona-fide words nonetheless. But abbreviations are different... aren't they?

   

  Hang on, what am I saying?? I've caught myself using "re" instead of "about" in conversation, as in, "What'd you think re that email I sent you yesterday?" Like it or not, we're on a slippery slope. The beast is out of the box, and he ain't going back in. Fact is, "re" may well knock "about" into the "archaic" category of the dictionary 50 years from now. Is that a good, a bad, or a neutral thing? I'm still trying to figure that one out; but I won't deny that language has to evolve; otherwise we'd all still be speaking Old English, and if you've ever taken a look at Beowulf, you know that's no picnic.
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  Evelyn Kanter March 27, 2011 at 9:52pm

  You know, like, I really agree with everything that, like, is being said here.  You know, like, all these people who, like, can't get speak an entire, like, sentence without, like, saying like, like, over and over, you know?  It makes me, like, crazy.  That's just, like, IMHO, an FYI, you know.
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  Northeast News March 27, 2011 at 9:20pm

  Bravo, Mr. Peat! I believe you've put your finger on the root cause of this restricted language: Stupidity is fashionable. Would anyone disagree with that conclusion?
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  Hal Peat March 27, 2011 at 9:02pm

  @Jose Balido - about the abbreviates: I have much less issue with that than with the deliberate dumbing down of the language by people who think they're being up-to-date by confining themselves to a maximum of just 2-3 adjectives. Especially by using only superlatives - thus, "epic" and "so" and "totally"...and if I had a penny for every time I've headr those, I'd be a very wealthy man. I don't think it's an inability to articulate either, I suspect it's just a current fashion to be inarticulate and/or unwilling to qualify or nuance what's being described. But as to the abbreviating, that too displays some of the same unwillingness to refine or express by choosing appropriately from the vast sea of language. I even recently had an editor in one email (and tweet) exclaim more than once "WTF" - and I do mean "WTF" and not just "WTH". Needless to say, we're no longer communicating although I'm sure he'd also insist that I had all that coming - but, I think appropriate language minus the short-hand cursing isn't something even an editor can claim unique privilege to and still call themselves professional. As my mother used to say: "You may have an explanation on occasion, dear, but you never have an excuse."
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  3orsluxrfdh47 March 27, 2011 at 3:06pm

  I'll second Allan's comment. The TC conference is great--even though you have to know going in that you may not make a sale. The connections with other writers are invaluable.