🤔 Ending a text message in a period is passive aggressive ( ? )

[ThinkingSapien]

yet somebody is still paying this “academic” to over-analyse this nonsense.

Is it that big of a deal that we have money to throw away for people to make an occupation out of this?

I don’t think COVID-19 is related. This is one aspect of what these linguist have noticed on grammar usage. They have already published books on a larger list of changes. “Because, the Internet” (one of the books) was published in June 2019.

And studying language is what linguist do in general. Also I don’t know when NPR originally recorded the interviews that made the story. Some of the stories they have played on the radio recently were recorded within the past year.

 

[Bithynian]

what these linguist have noticed on grammar usage

Yes, I think it’s a necessary feature of linguistics to document the minutiae. Their predecessors, the ancient grammarians, worked with the same conscientiousness. One ancient Greek grammarian noted the irregular vocative form (that is, used for direct addresses) of the word ὀδούς odous ‘tooth’. Now, I don’t know why anyone would want to address a tooth, but the grammarian nonetheless documented the irregular vocative.

 

[BartholomewB]

I wonder where he saw or heard that vocative in use! Was he lying back in the chair one day, with his mouth open, when he heard the dentist say, “Okay, lower left premolar! That’s it for you! Your time is up!”

 

[Bithynian]

the dentist

Yes! I honestly suspect that he might have heard it from a dentist (or their ancient equivalent), perhaps one who was frustrated at a stubborn tooth and then proceeded to curse it in anger. I can’t imagine any other scenario that involves addressing a tooth.

 

[Niblo]

Address To The Toothache

My curse upon thy venom’d stang,
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang;
An’ thro’ my lug gies mony a twang,
Wi’ gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,
Like racking engines!

When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colic squeezes;
Our neighbours’ sympathy can ease us,
Wi’ pitying moan;
But thee–thou hell o’ a’ diseases,
Aye mocks our groan!

Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
I kick the wee stools o’er the mickle ,
While round the fire the giglets keckle,
To see me loup;
While, raving mad, I wish a heckle
Were in their doup!

O’ a’ the num’rous human dools,
hairsts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,
Or worthy frien’s rak’d i’ the mools,
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’ fools,
Thou bear’st the gree!

Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell,
Where a’ the tones o’ misery yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu’ raw,
Thou, Tooth-ache, surely bear’st the bell,
Amang them a’!

O thou grim, mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes o’ discord squeel,
daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore, a shoe-thick;–
Gie a’ the faes o’ Scotland’s weal
A towmond’s tooth-ache!

(Rabbie Burns)

 

[BartholomewB]

Jorge Luis Borges observes, in one of his books, that Edgar Allan Poe is rated more highly as a poet in France than in the English-speaking countries. He attributes this to the fact that Poe’s translator, Charles Baudelaire, improved on the original. I suspect that something of the same kind explains why Burns’ poetry enjoyed such popularity in the Soviet Union and, as far as I know, still enjoys it in today’s Russia. In the poem you are quoting here, there are a dozen or more words whose meaning I can only guess at: stang, giglets, loup, doup …

Perhaps if I were to learn Russian …

 

[Lee3]

Incidentally, where I live, due to Covid the government has now bumped up the fees for uni degrees in the humanities and arts and decreased fees for stem type degrees in an attempt to encourage people to go into those fields instead.

 

[babochka]

I am “old school”, and when I take pen to paper (or its digital equivalent), I use traditional grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation.

Me, too. Just as the good sisters taught me. And I always double-space after a period. But what is traditional? The way our grandparents did things?

I look at historical documents such as the U.S. Constitution. Didn’t the founding fathers know anything about about capitalization rules? They seem to have capitalized any random word that they wanted to emphasize. I later learned that the writing convention of the time was to capitalize all nouns. Except when you didn’t. And don’t get me started on the spelling in older documents. It’s like they just made up their own rules. They did. Writing conventions are made-up rules and small changes are frequent.

Quite a few generations of America schoolchildren were taught to always capitalize pronouns that refer to God. I was never taught this in Catholic School in the 1970s, so it seems a bit odd and quaint to me. This writing convention dates to the 19th century and seems to have been almost entirely abandoned.

Change is hard, especially for conservative personalities of a certain age. It is hard to let go what we what we’re taught as “correct” because we very much want to do things correctly.

A study of linguistics and the history of the English language has taught me that what is “standard” changes with remarkable frequency and “non-standard” isn’t necessarily wrong.

Having said all that, this trend toward lack of punctuation hurts my old head. I see it a lot on CAF and I can’t make heads or tails what is being said. Punctuation exists for a reason!

 

[Wesrock]

Millenials grew up at the dawn of the Internet age, before most households had internet, and before cell phones (let alone smart phones) were common. I got my first non-smart cell phone at 18. Some people I knew had them in high school. Millenials grew up wild running through the woods and not having a computer at their fingertips, even having to memorize phone numbers!!!

“Zoomers” (Gen Z) grew up in the digital age. Cell phones everywhere. Making paper laptops to play with. Never knowing that there was a life before iPhones. <_<

 

[Niblo]

Perhaps if I were to learn Russian …

Translation:​

• stang : sting
• alang : along
• thro : through
• lug : ear
• gies : gives
• mony : many
• twang : sudden sharp pain
• wi ': with
• Adown : all down
• slavers : drool
• giglets : giggling maids
• keckle : cackle
• loup : jump
• heckle : flax comb
• doup : bottom
• dools : lamentations
• hairst : harvest
• daft : foolish
• cutty-stool : chair of shame
• fash : vexation
• mools : dirt, sods
• gree : degree of…
• raw : row
• chiel : lad
• gars : causes
• daft : foolish
• aft : often
• fae : foe
• weal : well being
• towmond : twelvemonth
• kick the wee stools o’er the mickle : probably=throw my toys out of the pram.

(Anon translator…possibly Russian )

 

[babochka]

BartholomewB:

phil19034:

When the Millennials or Gen Z started complaining too much…

Do Millennials and Gen Z still read books that are printed on paper, that they have to take down from a shelf and put back again afterwards, and with pages that they have to turn over by holding a corner between their thumb and forefinger? I was just reading on another thread about kids in school who never learned to read handwriting …

No idea, but my youngest 1st cousin (just graduated from college) never learned cursive in school!!!

He can’t (or couldn’t) read it very well (his mother was a teacher, so she’s taught him a little - but he never learned in school) and never used it.

I homeschool my kids and they have all learned cursive, but the modern world doesn’t provide many opportunities to practice reading or writing it.

 

[redcatholic]

This story is the most NPR thing I’ve ever seen. Good job NPR! While the world burns do a deep dive into textual punctuation!

 

[Wesrock]

phil19034:

BartholomewB:

phil19034:

When the Millennials or Gen Z started complaining too much…

Do Millennials and Gen Z still read books that are printed on paper, that they have to take down from a shelf and put back again afterwards, and with pages that they have to turn over by holding a corner between their thumb and forefinger? I was just reading on another thread about kids in school who never learned to read handwriting …

No idea, but my youngest 1st cousin (just graduated from college) never learned cursive in school!!!

He can’t (or couldn’t) read it very well (his mother was a teacher, so she’s taught him a little - but he never learned in school) and never used it.

I homeschool my kids and they have all learned cursive, but the modern world doesn’t provide many opportunities to practice reading or writing it.

This is really it. We could bemoan “kids these days” all we want, but there’s very little application for cursive nowadays. I’m a millenial, and when I was young I had to turn in handwritten reports, or handwrite assignments, and other things. At least until high school when everything began shifting to computers. Now kids are taking typing classes in third grade (correction, they were taking typing classes in third grade when my brother went through elementary school over a decade ago, that may have changed) and typing up assignments on computers and tablets. It’s not kids’ faults that these days they’ve never had any practice with it. They developed different skills instead.

I only use cursive for my signature or writing a note on the inside of a card (birthday, thank you, condolences…)

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I look at historical documents such as the U.S. Constitution. Didn’t the founding fathers know anything about about capitalization rules? They seem to have capitalized any random word that they wanted to emphasize. I later learned that the writing convention of the time was to capitalize all nouns. Except when you didn’t. And don’t get me started on the spelling in older documents. It’s like they just made up their own rules. They did. Writing conventions are made-up rules and small changes are frequent.

The founding fathers had varying levels of education. Capitalizing nouns seems like a carry-over from German, where that is done uniformly. Perhaps English, being a Germanic language, had the same conventions at that time. Also not to be neglected, is that spelling was not really standardized until Noah Webster came along.

A study of linguistics and the history of the English language has taught me that what is “standard” changes with remarkable frequency and “non-standard” isn’t necessarily wrong.

One thing as well, it is seen in some circles as racist and Eurocentric to condemn certain usages, spellings, and so on. And spell-check has made people of all cultural sectors just plain lazy.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I look at historical documents such as the U.S. Constitution. Didn’t the founding fathers know anything about about capitalization rules?

Those documents use the long-S. I tried reading the rules for that letter once. I just could not understand it.

Long-s in action. Look at the word “lost”

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[TULIPed]

No. I mean if that’s the way you want to punctuate, fine with me. Whatever.

 

[pnewton]

I homeschool my kids and they have all learned cursive, but the modern world doesn’t provide many opportunities to practice reading or writing it.

They no longer teach cursive in public schools here. As I see it, I now have a way of writing in a secret code from all these zoomies.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Those documents use the long-S. I tried reading the rules for that letter once. I just could not understand it.

Long-s in action. Look at the word “lost”

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Not to mention paradife, licenfed, fold, and [something]-ftreet.

I alwayf thought that waf funny when I waf in grade fchool. :man_teacher:t2:

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I alwayf thought that waf funny when I waf in grade fchool. :man_teacher:t2:

HA! ​

lol

 

[BartholomewB]

Not to mention paradife, licenfed, fold, and [something]-ftreet.

Bifhopfgate!

Or even Biſhopſgate. It’s there, if you go to Infert fymbol.