I just re-realized something..

[conuly]

All those once-cool slang words, like phat, rad, groovy, bees knees... somebody made them up. Somebody came up with this word they wanted to use to mean... well, in this case, cool.

But seriously. Linguistic change happens because individuals, not groups, use certain words in certain ways. Eventually, an individual quirk is picked up by a larger group... and it might even spread throughout the entire language, like "cool" did.

I COULD CHANGE THE FACE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

I really could. Just by using words in a set way. I'm already making a tiny impact in the virtual world... I know people other than myself who say *gigglesnorts* online, though I don't know if they do that when not on NC.

But what if I could make a larger difference? What if I could, say, start using thee and thou again? Youse and y'all aren't used much outside of certain regions... but thee and thou, those are universal, if somewhat obsolete.

Or what if I could invent a gender inclusive third person pronoun that people actually use? Not by promoting it, just by using it? Heck, I could go even more exotic... proximate and obviate pronouns! (Basically, the obviate third person is like a FOURTH person... "He kissed his wife", if "his" is the 4th person singular, you know he kissed somebody else's wife, not his own) Or inclusive/exclusive we! (Inclusive: me and you. Exclusive: me and somebody else, not you).

Yeah... okay, I'm getting a little hyper here. So I'll restrict myself to a few smaller goals, which I've already started using in my own speech and writing:

1. *gigglesnorts*
2. "Mihi" and "tibi" instead of "to me" and "to you" ("it seems loud mihi" instead of "it seems loud to me")

I'll make a deal. You post your words-to-be-popularized, and if I like them, I'll try to use them. And vice versa, of course.

(edit) I realized something else, just now! Other people say "bedgoing" (and variants). I mostly just say that on aim, to be sure, in real life I strive to say "going to bed" so as to not appear ignorant, but I use it often on aim... and I know I've seen other people do that as well. I'm also fairly certain that these people did not do that until I started doing that. I'm just too cool :)

Comments

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

I think I can understand you, though I prefer Babylon 5 to Star Trek. (I haven't watched much ST either, but I'm planning on doing so.) In primary school, I pencilled a comic about a sentient robot who wants to become "human" (in the NT sense) and a girl who tries to dissuade her. (<-ME)

And in primary school I was bullied with lines like this, "you're an extraterrestrial! You're probably contagious! EEps!" (at this point social partner either tries to hurt me physically or runs off, 100% scared. I liked the scare effect somewhat.) There was an aliens craze back when I started attending primary school, oh well, I can do with worse =) So this alien metaphor occurs rather easily to me.

These aliens of mine are a weird bunch, though, as they're both autistic and telepathic. I'm fairly sure I can build up a culture like this convincingly and more or less (less?) consistently, but maybe I'll run into some brick walls down along the road.

It eliminates some of the problems, but not all by far, especially when these poor aliens meet the humans. - They're poor because they have to meet the humans, but without that, where'd the point be? LOL. - Forced telepathic contact would freak the humans out, so that's not an option. But without that, they're pretty much helpless when it comes to interpreting the humans, more helpless than a non-telepathic autistic who grew up in an NT culture.

Though one has to note I not only want the comparison to be meaningful, I also want the culture to be standalone, and I have just started designing their main language to that effect. Sooo fun! Last time I did something like this was in primary school. (When I was obsessed with creating a society of what seems like underwater high elves. Imagine that! LOL.) But I think I have gained a few levels of skill since then... =)

[xreferenced.livejournal.com]

Oh, I left something out, not all of them are telepathic, but a largish portion of them are, and of course they send the telepaths as emissaries, who else? They want to communicate. LOL. It's only logical.

There are telepaths, telepath/telekinetics, and no-psi ones. They have different life spans and lots of different stuff that makes interesting dynamics in a society. Stop me stop me I'll go off rambling!!