Dear Members and Constituents,
I must admit it’s fun to watch language evolve (or devolve, depending on your stance). New words are coined by the media to hype events (birdpocalypse, fishpocalypse); politicians to slant debate (obamacare, carterization); technologists to describe new activities (to tweet, to google) or youth, for no apparent reason (bromance, chillax, shawdy). While some of these words may stick around for a long time, others will likely fall into disuse and fade away from our collective memories. Generations from now, the passages of high brow literature may include phrases such as “given this relationship as frienemies it was natural for Laquisha not to overthink her recent defriending by Romela…” or something to that effect. Language change is a byproduct of the changing habits and preferences of its users. If language were frozen in time, we’d need to struggle with Shakespeare’s language to describe eating a burrito while carpooling to the high-rise building where you work as a telecom product manager (five dollars to the first person who can convincingly communicate this thought in the bard’s English).
This first Friday of the new year, I have another new word for you: donalicious. It may not stick around for long, but for now you can use it to describe the sensation you feel while eating one of the sweet pastries delivered this morning by Ed Stocker (donut boy). So come ye down without delay and fetch thy pastry, lest some scoundrel deprive thee of thou… you get the idea.
Happy Friday!
I must admit it’s fun to watch language evolve (or devolve, depending on your stance). New words are coined by the media to hype events (birdpocalypse, fishpocalypse); politicians to slant debate (obamacare, carterization); technologists to describe new activities (to tweet, to google) or youth, for no apparent reason (bromance, chillax, shawdy). While some of these words may stick around for a long time, others will likely fall into disuse and fade away from our collective memories. Generations from now, the passages of high brow literature may include phrases such as “given this relationship as frienemies it was natural for Laquisha not to overthink her recent defriending by Romela…” or something to that effect. Language change is a byproduct of the changing habits and preferences of its users. If language were frozen in time, we’d need to struggle with Shakespeare’s language to describe eating a burrito while carpooling to the high-rise building where you work as a telecom product manager (five dollars to the first person who can convincingly communicate this thought in the bard’s English).
This first Friday of the new year, I have another new word for you: donalicious. It may not stick around for long, but for now you can use it to describe the sensation you feel while eating one of the sweet pastries delivered this morning by Ed Stocker (donut boy). So come ye down without delay and fetch thy pastry, lest some scoundrel deprive thee of thou… you get the idea.
Happy Friday!
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