How English Changed Over Time

“Authority and American Usage,” an interesting essay written by the brilliant and quick-witted David Foster Wallace, presents an argument on different ways of understanding the ever-changing American usage in the English language. Keeping up with the English language in America is like chasing your new, untrained puppy down the street. Tiring and basically impossible to get a hold of. Over the past centuries, the English language has evolved so much, that if you took a person from the 13th century and threw them in the middle of New York City in 2013, it would be as if two different languages were being spoken.

Kory STAMPER is a lexicographer and editor for the Merriam-Webster dictionaries, and in her first book, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, which was released in March 2017, she documents the difficulties she faces as a lexicographer. In this article, the author tracks how the slang words “swag”, “fubar” and “bae” have changed over time.

This essay is about how English has changed over the years. The essay explores how speaking English has changed, like some people have different ways they speak English and some people have the accent. It has changed in the way we write. Now days in the English language there is over 1 million words. Back then there wasn’t much words. English has changed in text messaging. Like now we make the words shorter like lol that means laugh out loud. They have done that because it’s a quicker way. The first text message was in 1992. English also changed in schools and universities. It has changed by now we have technology to help us find information or search up for meaning on online dictionary. This essay examines how English has changed over the years. There are around 800 to 2000 word that are used to speak the English language.

Millennials are known for coming up with slang words, that they frequently use, eventually get tired

Furthermore, YOLO is considered as slang and the dictionary editors are looking out for this word whether it is going to stick, we keep using it or

Situations dictate the type of language people use on a daily basis. People use careful language because they don’t want to be perceived as the bad guy. They are afraid of offending somebody, which nowadays is more

Slang terms have been a prominent part of society for many years. Slang terms have also changed from generation to generation. This paper will discuss some common slang terms and see if there is a significant difference between the generations. Two hypotheses were used for this research project. The reason that there are two is explained in the paper.

In the article “2b or not 2b”, David Crystal begins with discussing how others such as John Humphry argued that texters are “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years ago. They are destroying it” (335). This is also the common belief of most people. People often argue about the bad points of technology over our language. However, Crystal believes that texting can improve children’s ability to read and write rather than hinder their literacy as many people claim. He also argues that not all texting are done in abbreviated words. Complex messages and institutional messages are often texted in standard form of

“Ugh, she so ratchet,” a common phrase when hitting the club or scrolling through any social media site. No, they’re not referring to the mechanical tool or the beloved Transformers character, their inferring to the new slang term that has established itself within a generation’s vocabulary. But how exactly does an everyday term such as ratchet become so twisted to the point where it’s new meaning no longer resembles it’s old one? As it once was mainly known as a mechanical tool used to repair clocks and roller coasters, it now has a entirely different definition. Although words may have an established meaning, as time goes by, that meaning may change,

Over time, social group labels tend to mutate from their original interpretation, due to societal evolution. The hipster is no exception, as it originally referred to 1940s Bebop Jazz enthusiasts. Hipsters has since become the term referencing pretentious rich kids, attempting to recreate a sense of underground-ness; whether it be music or style-related. However, hipsters of today differ from the former in the sense that their actions are fueled solely by effort, rather than sheer interest of being outlandish and chic concurrently with music and style.

It is believed that this word was introduced to the English language because of the new way adolescents acted. They no longer tried to be like their adult parents. Rock and Roll was a new genre of music during this time period and loved by the youth, but dismissed by the elders of the time. It was considered childish and immoral music, but the teenagers were rebellious and continued to indulge themselves with the music even though their parents did not approve. Artists like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were popular rock and roll musicians and brought the genre to life making the youth fall even harder for the new sound. Now because this was the middle of the baby boomer generation, there were a considerable amount of teenagers and this caused a change in our culture. Many social aspects were tailored to the youths liking, such as movies, magazines, and clothes. There was now a prevalent market for kids from the age of thirteen to eighteen. Movies like “Gidget” and “Teenage Rebel” or the magazine “16” are examples that illustrate how industries were trying to make films and other products tailored to the teens’ desires. This was rather new in that time period and still exists today. We have whole T.V. channels, stores, magazines, and movies that are geared toward the youth of America. Now one reason these products were so successful was the fact that there were more parents of this generation who were well off and

The English language is no different than it was a century ago; however, it has been culturally changing over the past few decades. It is common knowledge to humans that each ethnicity has their own formal language they speak and that they perceive various styles of language in different manners. Language style is the choice of words used by a specific group of people when they speak. Although we have the ability to speak to everyone in the same proper way, naturally we, including myself, tend to change our speech depending on where we are, who we are associated with, and the situation we are encountered in.

Think of things that morph over time. What comes to mind? People may think about a music artist’s change from YouTube videos recorded on iPhones to sold-out concerts. Or, they may think about the changes an athlete makes from childhood to becoming a professional athlete. However, did you think about how much a language changes over a couple of years? Every year words are added to and taken from the dictionary. Words are formed and forgotten. Language changes because of a person’s vocabulary and location, but what happens to a language, like the English language, that is spread across the whole world?

English went on a long and vigorous adventure to have become the vast language that we know, speak and read today. In this essay, the differences and similarities between Old English and Modern English will be discussed by referring to an extract of Matthew 2: 4-10 from The Gospel of Saint Matthew in West Saxon: edited from the manuscripts by James Wilson Bright (1910:5-6). In the discussion there will be referred to the differences and similarities in orthography, spelling, vocabulary and syntax. Conclusions will also be made about the nature of these chances as they occurred in the adventure from Old English to Modern English.

Nowadays, the roles of English around the world have changed rapidly. English only served as the first or the second language of certain countries some years ago. Recently, English has a new role as a language which is used as a means of communication between people with different