I think we have to find how to get used to them!
Fortunately, I
don't have to get used to them. I'm not around any other English speakers and, except for the internet, I almost never use English. That's probably the reason I notice some changes and find them annoying. If I were around English speakers more then I probably wouldn't notice these gradual changes.
My exposure to English comes from 1)this forum, 2) podcasts, and 3) occasional telephone calls to my mother.
The use of 'literally' to mean 'figuratively' ...
That's hopefully just a passing bit of slang that will die out soon
That's not a recent thing. I'm 50 and it was prevalent when I was a kid. It isn't going anywhere.
1. Starting sentences with the word "So" (particularly when there is no other context or explanatory introduction.
Thanks to a post a few months ago on this topic, I first started noticing this quirk. It is incredibly annoying.
Others:
1a. The "vocal fry" epidemic. Everybody sounds like a bunch of croaking toads.
1b. The "running out of air" too-cool-for-the-room disaffected affectation. Pretty much
always found in conjunction with vocal fry. It is as though people run out of air 3/4 of the way through their sentences and they just just let everything trail off and disappear into a breathless, inaudible croak. If you don't care enough to maintain the volume through your entire sentence, then I don't care enough to listen to it.
2. People who punctuate their speech with tooth-sucking sounds. It makes me think I'm watching a Victor Borge punctuation sketch.
3. The rapid disappearance of the indefinite articles a/an from speech. Has no one else noticed that many English speakers almost universally replace a/an with this/these? It goes beyond merely annoying to being distracting. By way of example, an extract from a post of a few months ago:
i met this guy who asked me where is the nearest park, so we talk and while on our way outside the mcdonalds, we met this girl who stop us and was traveling, she got stuck there and she connected with this lady who was there sleeping. Lucky, the lady knew the area and showed us this other spot to go too. we hang out and talk all night at this noodle shop.
Imagine if Japanese speakers indiscriminately inserted 例の or とある in front of every noun. That's what it sounds like when I'm listening to it in English. I recently subscribed to a new podcast,
Embedded, and while it seems to be a well-produced and interesting show, in the middle of the first episode I was already contemplating unsubscribing. Why? The host has the (typical for NPR) vocal fry
and the this/these habit.
4. "Try
and {verb}" instead of "try
to {verb}". Don't believe it is wrong? Try the construction in different tenses and see if you maintain "and" instead of "to".
5. "If I would of/have...." instead of "If I had...."
6. Misuse of
past perfect tense as some sort of hypercorrect or formal past tense. When I hear past perfect tense, I expect there to be reference to TWO past events....not ONE.
7. The "down the rabbit hole" expression. Somebody please dynamite the rabbit hole.
8. Inability to distinguish between nominative and objective case pronoun use. I get so tired of hearing ignoramuses say things like "to he and I" for "for her and I".
9. Using "whenever" as a universal substitute for "when".
10. "Yeah, no" or "No, yeah". Eff you,
pick one!!!.
11. Textspeak.
12. The surreal political correctness inspired phenomenon of mixing of register in vulgar conversations. Plenty of bawdy slang you wouldn't use of front of your grandmother referencing sex acts and
male genitalia....interspersed with "vagina" throughout. All one or all the other, please. Clean it all up or nasty it all up.
