A study called the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 reveals how our use of language is evolving. Is British English succumbing to American influence?
Almost nothing is marvellous these days, but everything is awesome. According to a study by Lancaster University and Cambridge University Press, Britain has all but abandoned the former adjective in favour of the latter.
Early evidence from their project, the Spoken British National Corpus 2014, shows that “awesome” now turns up in conversation 72 times per million words. “Marvellous”, which 20 years ago appeared 155 times per million words, now appears just twice per million. “Fortnight” is also on the endangered list, as is “cheerio”. (That’s “cheerio” meaning goodbye, young people, as opposed to the singular form of the breakfast cereal, which you would only tend to use if you got one stuck up your nose.)
The study is the linguistic equivalent of that regularly updated shopping basket they use to determine the Retail Price Index: out goes whale meat and suspenders, in comes SIM cards and hummus. They aren’t like-for-like substitutions, just signifiers of a fast-changing culture. More.
See: The Guardian
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Австралия
Local time: 22:49
английский => венгерский
+ ...
I think marvellous is really marvellous but I won't use it any more because at my age I don't want to sound old-fashioned at my age (I'm only 82)
I'll keep using fantastic, which is very Spanish.
Local time: 12:49
немецкий => английский
+ ...
Yes, the language has moved on - but it's left me behind. My sister announced this summer that I sound very "quaint" when I talk English; I still talk just the way I did twenty odd years ago, when I left Britain. Marvellous, fortnight and cheerio all sound perfectly fine to me. And I've had to learn all the new vocabulary for mobile phones, internet etc much like learning a foreign language.
Any other ex-pats out there who have the same problem?
Испания
Local time: 12:49
испанский => английский
+ ...
For example, I believe that certain TV shows (naming no names) promote certain attitudes or lifestyles, foisting them on the native population at large, and ignorance of them might be deemed... See more
For example, I believe that certain TV shows (naming no names) promote certain attitudes or lifestyles, foisting them on the native population at large, and ignorance of them might be deemed "quaint" by some.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11050695/Alan-Titchmarsh-our-evolving-English-language-is-amazeballs.html ▲ Collapse
Испания
Local time: 12:49
испанский => английский
+ ...
Any other ex-pats out there who have the same problem?
People who turn up and blurt out inanities? Yes, I'm sure we all have out cross to bear in that sense to some extent. However, my advice is not to be defeatist. If you simply roll over after a mere two decades abroad and accept that "the language has left me behind", you might just as well curl up and accept all their other stupid opinions as gospel.
When living abroad, we often have to modify our spoken English when dealing with non-native speakers. We may tend to use slightly more formal constructions than we usually would when talking to family members, friends or other native English speakers, and perhaps also speak a little more clearly or slowly. Perhaps this is what the poster's sister found “quaint”. Coming from Glasgow myself, I have often been asked why I have “an English accent” when I go back home, but I'm pretty sure none of my English friends here would agree with that particular assessment!
[Edited at 2014-08-27 11:01 GMT]
As it happens, today I went for lunch to a friend's house to celebrate her birthday. She is English but has lived in Spain for almost 20 years and her husband is Spanish. Some friends were also there on 2 weeks holiday from the UK, as well as another couple of native speakers, from UK and New Zealand, so I put the question to them. It turns out that we all tend to agree that after living abroad for a while certain terms of phrase don’t spring so readily to mind - for example today we had to prompt my friend when she was trying to express “haves and have-nots” by paraphrasing, even though she was speaking in English to another UK native speaker. This may come about from having to paraphrase idiomatic expressions - which in a native speaker setting you wouldn't think twice about - when talking to a mixed group/ socialising with non-native speakers. My friend, who was recently back in England for six weeks, also commented how for the first few days back there she noticed that her sentence structures “weren't quite right”, and that it took a few days for her to get back into the natural way of speaking back in the old country. In the end, the consensus was that expats probably do end sounding “quaint”, but the phenomenon is natural and widspread, so we shouldn’t take it to heart or as a personal failing.
[Edited at 2014-08-27 20:28 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-08-28 08:15 GMT]
Чехия
Local time: 12:49
французский => английский
+ ...
It's interesting that 'fortnight', being nearly extinct in colloquial speech, persists in technical usage, as in e.g. fortnightly backups.
Нидерланды
Local time: 12:49
английский
+ ...
from my collection under the personal tab of my profile:
"Stability in language is synonymous with rigor mortis."
(Ernest Weekley, lexicographer; 1865-1954)
¶
"Time changes all things: there is no reason why language
should escape this universal law."
(Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist and semiotician; 1857-1913)
¶
США
Local time: 06:49
русский => английский
+ ...
It is really cool that marvelous became awesome, especially that it is not that often used in AE anymore--just a nice relic. At least you can find it in BE now.
[Edited at 2014-08-27 12:30 GMT]
Великобритания
Local time: 11:49
иврит => английский
I still say this and I hear it quite regularly.
Франция
Local time: 12:49
французский => английский
...or should that be BS?
Великобритания
Local time: 11:49
французский => английский
+ ...
What has replaced "fortnight" for those people?
Испания
Local time: 12:49
Член ProZ.com c 2011
испанский => английский
+ ...
Yes, the language has moved on - but it's left me behind. My sister announced this summer that I sound very "quaint" when I talk English; I still talk just the way I did twenty odd years ago, when I left Britain. Marvellous, fortnight and cheerio all sound perfectly fine to me. And I've had to learn all the new vocabulary for mobile phones, internet etc much like learning a foreign language.
Any other ex-pats out there who have the same problem?
The same thing has happened to me.
When living abroad, we often have to modify our spoken English when dealing with non-native speakers. We may tend to use slightly more formal constructions than we usually would when talking to family members, friends or other native English speakers, and perhaps also speak a little more clearly or slowly.
Yes, I speak a lot faster in Spanish than in English.
Испания
Local time: 12:49
испанский => английский
+ ...
It's interesting that 'fortnight', being nearly extinct in colloquial speech, persists in technical usage, as in e.g. fortnightly backups.
AFAIK, "fortnight" is still common usage in UK English, unlike in USA, where it is apparently one of the giveaways of Britishness.
Великобритания
Local time: 11:49
Член ProZ.com c 2008
итальянский => английский
The word" awesome" has a very clear meaning in the English language; the fact that it is currently misused by young and fairly illiterate people who really don't know what awe is, doesn't mean that it has taken over from all those other words, of which there must be many, that express great enthusiasm about something or other.
[Edited at 2014-08-28 19:27 GMT]
Local time: 12:49
шведский => английский
A good dictionary tells us that awesone is also slang for excellent or outstanding.
Many years ago on a visit "home" my younger brother told me that I spoke English like a bloody foreigner. "Quaint" is putting it kindly.
Yes, it does take a few ays to get back to a more normal way of speaking.
Индия
Local time: 17:19
Член ProZ.com c 2006
английский => хинди
+ ...
I find it very interesting that many of you here were quite categorical in another (actually several other) thread that however long you stay out of the country of your origin, your language remains unaffected, and you have an edge over non-natives translating into your language.
What happene... See more
I find it very interesting that many of you here were quite categorical in another (actually several other) thread that however long you stay out of the country of your origin, your language remains unaffected, and you have an edge over non-natives translating into your language.
What happened to that line of thought?
It only goes to highlight that whole native-only ploy is just to keep off competition. ▲ Collapse
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