Posted on 02/23/2015 2:39:19 AM PST by iowamark
Yolo. Rekt. Bae. Xans. Lordt. Every era has its own version of emerging language, and the new words and phrases of our time tend to spring from the Internet – from emails, texts, tweets and other rapid-fire, written communication.
They’re often acronyms or abbreviations. Some become enduring parts of communication – as O.K., P.S. and R.S.V.P. did, from earlier times – while others flare briefly and then fade.
To get a sense for which of today’s emerging terms are on the rise, which are fading and which may have longevity, Jack Grieve, a linguist at Aston University in England, analyzed almost one billion tweets from the millions of Twitter users within the contiguous United States. Not surprisingly, Mr. Grieve found that “lexical innovators” – those people are in the vanguard of word usage – are overwhelmingly young. More specifically, a disproportionate number are young black women in the South and young white men in the West and North.
Here, we offer a short, 12-question quiz for you to find out how linguistically en vogue you are. Along the way, we’ll give you some details on which words are on the upswing and which words are, as the kids would have said a couple years ago, meh.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This article is whack
What acronym is O.K.?
I seriously doubt this guy analyzed a BILLION tweets.
Either that or new glasses...
She’s right. Though I might need her help....
Old Kinderhook
See Martin Van Buren. its explained in “silver Linings Playbook”.
NOTE: There are alternative theories. on the origin of OK.
She’s right....
Hey, if she’s offering...
If you can read this, would you hit it?
Is she offering?
Oh? You could read that?????? (she asked innocently)
If I had to guess, I’d say the top innovators were:
1. The advertising industry. They have to create new words by misspelling old words in order to be able to copyright them or to garner attention.
2. The illiterate. They have poor vocabularies, no idea of how to spell the few words they do know, and little knowledge of grammar. They (or their apologists) pass off ignorance as innovation.
3. Comedians and sitcom writers.
Fleek? No. Freep, yes.
I was told it started as Zero Killed.
When “bling” was being used years ago, it occurred to me that “jewelry” may be a difficult word for some speakers.
Groovy, Man!
That’s the Bees Knees!
23 Skidoo!
Felix!
Long time no see!
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