I wasn’t talking about contractions. I’m using them in this post and use them all the time. Language without contractions was used for comic effect in the novel/Coen brothers film True Grit. You can use informal language in speech all the time. I’m talking about when it bleeds into written/standard use...when kids start writing term papers that way.
There was a movement in the 1980s to make the word “Like” a verb helper. As in “Like totally man can we like do this thing right?” It failed because it was a stupid idea and while people still use the word that way is it NOT correct English and would be marked wrong on a test. The word Irony defines a precise occurrence and watering it down is a bad idea and would invite the need for MORE language to explain what you’re talking about. If a student does that they should be marked down on an English test...and saying “everyone’s doing it” is not an excuse.
One of the most common errors in writing these days (even in College) is using ‘would of’ and ‘should of’ in the place of would’ve’ or ‘should’ve’. Do you think that’s OK?
To give an example of a language change that was for the worse...we no longer have a distinction between 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural. If I say “This is for you”, I could be talking to one person or a group of people. Wouldn’t it be nice to have ‘Thee’, ‘Thou’ and ‘Thine’ back to get that distinction?
Contractions are part of the same drive, making the language faster to get the point across. Kids writing term papers that way is the fault of teachers, they failed to teach the kids the difference between casual and formal language and term papers shouldn’t be written the way you talk.
The reason that “movement” failed is because it was a fad not a movement, and more importantly it was a fad with only one subsection of society. It never came into general usage. General usage changes language, fads are bumps along the road.
The word irony doesn’t mean what it used to. Look again at that sentence I put in yesterday. The reason that sentence wouldn’t have made sense 20 years ago is a whole bunch of those words have had new meaning assigned. A browser used to just be somebody that browses, now it’s a tool to view the world on your computer. Mice used to just be rodents. Flat and screen never got combined.
Doesn’t really matter if I’m OK with it. That’s my my point. These changes happen, they’re inevitable. I can see how those happened, “would’ve” in speech became “woulda” in the 70s and then somewhere along the lines people tried to expand it back out but thought the v was an f and “would of” was born. It happens. No amount of complaining is going to make it change. Teachers can grade down for it and remove it from formal language, but in the common usage it’s gonna stay... at least until the next change. Wonder if it’ll become “would’f”.