It's a bones day! ☠️, mayonnaise tries to influence lexicography 🍟, so many ways to be pilled 💊
Welcome to the latest instalment of English in Progress, the newsletter that keeps you updated on the English language. Fresh in your inbox every fortnight. (Ish.)
My name is Heddwen Newton. I am a translator, English teacher and an academic (kindof) specialised in Dutch English. Yes, that is a thing. (I betrayed my Dutchness this fortnight in my choice of emojis. Can you spot it?)
I have used limited AI to create this newsletter; just to improve on phrasing. All articles were chosen, read and summarised by a human being, namely me :-)
Best of the fortnight
In Australia, an Irish accent carries less weight than in the UK
A charming personal account of a British accent in Ireland, an Irish accent in the UK and an Irish accent in Australia. “In the UK my Irish accent seemed to generate one of two reactions. Upon hearing it, people would either list every Irish ancestor or current relative (a convenient icebreaker for us both – grand so) or immediately adopt a pose channelling the Duke of Wellington and say something spectacularly ignorant such as “All about potatoes, are you?” (that’s offensive because the answer is obviously yes) or “Big drinkers, you lot! Haw haw!”
The EF English Proficiency Index for 2023 is in
EF stands for Education First, an international education company that offers free online English tests. In 2022, 2.2 million adults took the test, and EF uses the data to say something about how well people all over the world speak English, and how this has developed since 2011. Of all non-native countries, the Netherlands has the highest level of English, but there has been a slight dip recently, just like in many other countries. It is visible especially in the age range 18-20, suggesting it is probably due to COVID. If you like pretty graphs, do download the PDF report, it’s gorgeous.
A balanced take on therapy speak
Therapy speak has been a much-discussed subject recently, with many characterising it as simply bad and annoying, and others seeing it as helpful and liberating. It all depends, of course, on context, which is why I found this piece by Amanda Montell to be a satisfyingly balanced take. “some executives used verbiage that suggested that they themselves were “a safe space” for employees, who could approach them with their troubles. But the juxtaposition of that kind of mental-health phrase and profit-driven corporate-speak about “KPIs” doesn’t always jibe.”
Mignon Fogarty’s AI sidequest
Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty has started a newsletter to find out what text-generative AI can offer writers and editors. I’m subscribed to many AI newsletters; most are aimed at tech-bros, some treat their readers like idiots, and there doesn’t seem to be much in between. Well, this is the one that is in between. Actual hands-on tips that you can use, written by someone who knows what she is talking about.
Gen Zalpha slang
Slang used by Gen Z (born 1996 to 2010, more or less) and Gen Alpha (born 2010 to 2024). Click on the word to see where I got it from.
acoustic - another way of saying autistic, also used as a way of using “autistic” as an insult without using “autistic” as an insult. (On Urban Dictionary since 2016)
bones day / no-bones day - a good day vs a bad day. Named after a dog called Noodle on TikTok who would be made to sit up straight in the morning. If he stayed upright: bones day. If he melted back into bed: no-bones day. (On Urban Dictionary since 2021)
bop - good music “that artist’s latest track is a total bop” (On Urban Dictionary since 2016)
breadcrumbing - when a person flirts with you but doesn't make an effort to date you (On Urban Dictionary since 2018)
gyat - Gen Alpha slang for a big behind. Rhymes with “yacht”. (On Urban Dictionary since 2021, though meaning seems to have shifted from “gyat” meaning “goddamn (that person is voluptuous)” to referring to the voluptuous body parts directly from 2022)
rizzler - “like when you’re a pro at flirting with people” (On Urban Dictionary since 2022)
sigma - a lone wolf; a highly successful man focused only on himself (counterpart of “alpha”, the leader of the pack) (On Urban Dictionary since 2021)
Words of the Year
At the end of every year, dictionaries and lexicography-adjacent influencers will proclaim their “words of the year”, or WotYs. I keep an eye on them from October to January. Here is the most recent WotY news.
UK-based Cambridge Dictionary has chosen hallucinate as its word of the year, referring to the tendency of text-generating AI to invent incorrect information. The page it has set up about it is worth a look if you do not yet know much about AI and would like to know more.
The Australian Dictionary Centre word of the year is Matilda. This is due to the soaring popularity of the Australian women’s soccer team known as The Matildas, who did really well during this year’s Women’s FIFA World Cup. (A Matilda, then, is a member of the Australian women’s soccer team.) Their semi-final match against England was the most-watched TV program in Australia since 2001, drawing in more than 11 million people.
I’m a little confused at the Dictionary’s Centre’s reluctance to pin down where the name came from, with other sources saying there was a television vote in 1994 to give the soccer players this name, taken from the Australian song Waltzing Matilda.
Australia isn’t done yet, though, as the Macquarie Dictionary people’s choice word of the year is also coming up. You can vote here, but only if you live in Australia (boo!). The shortlist includes words like algospeak, bopo (body positivity), scrotox (botox for the scrotum), skimpflation and YIMBY (yes in my backyard)
American dictionary Merriam-Webster has not yet announced its word of the year, but it finds itself in the middle of a big-bucks commercial marketing campaign to promote… mayonnaise. American company Kraft is trying to influence the result by getting the lexicographers to choose the word moist. Though I do not think it is actually going to become MW’s word of the year, I have seen the campaign all over the place, so it looks like it was a clever idea on Kraft’s part. I asked Bluesky friends Lynne Murphy and Mignon Fogarty about it, and they don’t think anything like this has happened to WotY before. We’re watching history unfold…
Neologisms
The neologisms below were sourced from the Cambridge Dictionary New Words blog, “field X buzzwords”-type lists, and stuff I noticed myself. My admittedly subjective criterion for words to make the list is that they seemed new and interesting to me. Click on the word for my source.
Christmas creep - the gradual lengthening of the Christmas season, with ever earlier displays of lights, wreaths, and decorated trees.
Ghost work - work done by a human being, usually online and for low pay, to do a task that most people believe is done automatically by a computer
Hyperphysical retail - the activity of making a shop more visually appealing and creating interesting experiences for the people who go there
Loud labourer - someone who likes to tell colleagues about how busy and successful they are at work, when often this is not actually the case
Spider webbing - when a romantic partner creates a web of deceit and manipulation that can trap victims in an unstable and toxic relationship
The shifting meaning of words
So many ways to be -pilled
Redpilled, bluepilled, breadpilled, or simply pilled. Nancy Friedman takes us through all the pill colours and other iterations and their meanings.
Rob Kyff’s reverbables are reversable
When we say that a car "drives well," we don't literally mean that the car is driving itself. "Drives well" is simply shorthand for saying, "The car feels smooth and responsive when I drive it." Another such verb is "graduate." Originally, a college "graduated" students. Then students "were graduated from" or "graduated from" college. But, today, many people say, "I graduated college," a complete reversal of the verb's original meaning.
Corporate language is getting softer in tone
“There’s no question today’s work-speak is softer, more collegial and often distanced from the winning-losing lexicon. We don’t simply “send” something, we “share” it. We don’t “thank” people for a piece of work or a good idea, we “appreciate” them. And, of course, no one is ever fired or terminated any more; they are “delayered” or “right-sized” or “released” with thanks to pursue other opportunities.”
When meme culture enters the lexicon
“Unalive is used to replace the word “kill” online. This term came about because many social media platforms demonetize or censor content that discusses death, and specifically suicide. By now, I’ve heard many people use this term even though they’re not on the internet or being censored.”
Australia’s military moves to genderless vocabulary
Drones are no longer unmanned aircraft, but uncrewed aircraft; man-hours have become staff-hours and hungry soldiers will not eat from one-man ration packs but from one-person ration packs.
Podcasts
Lexis covers all the things we’re interested in
In the past two episodes, small-scale British podcast Lexis, which is aimed at English teachers in the UK, has done interviews on Nigerian English, the study about southern English accents that has been getting a lot of press recently, and accentism. Give them five minutes to get warmed up, but once they get going I think all these interviews are very worthwhile.
Because Language is also on a roll
Australia-based-but-pretty-international podcast Because Language has interviewed Rob Drummond for his new book “You’re all Talk” and Sarah Ogilvie for “Dictionary People”. I love this podcast, the hosts are very funny, but I hardly ever listen to it because the episodes are SO. LONG. Definitely worth a listen if you 1) have never listened before or 2) you like long podcasts.
Pick-n-mix
Some articles that didn’t fit anywhere else.
Scrabble word list controversy
Scrabble's contentious lexicon update, featuring over 4,700 additions, has triggered debates among players. The reintroduction of previously removed slurs initially drew attention, but scrutiny intensified with questionable inflections, like “feceses” as a plural for “feces”. Critics argue that the update lacks professional lexicographer input, leading to errors.
Why is swearing so much fun?
Rebecca Roach gives a taste of her new book “For F*ck’s Sake: Why Swearing Is Shocking, Rude and Fun” Swearing can be so satisfying that it can help us withstand pain. It can shock, offend and entertain. It can release tension or increase it. It can foster intimacy.
Your Voice May Reveal If You Have Type 2 Diabetes
A new artificial intelligence (AI) model may be able to tell a person has type 2 diabetes with just short clips of the person’s voice. The researchers say that people who have diabetes can develop diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage, which can affect their vocal function, potentially leading to changes in the pitch and strength of their voice.
World English words
The different varieties of English as spoken all around the world are known to academics as “World Englishes”. In this section, I highlight some words and terms from the richness of the English-speaking world that came to my attention in the past weeks. Click on the word to get more information. Tip: see if you can find your own English variety below. Find out which words seem normal to you, but strange to others!
Ent? - Trinidadian English for “Right?” or “Isn’t that so?”
I’ll go ahead - Philippine English for “I have to go now”
on seat - Nigerian English for “to be present in the office”
to outdoor - in Ghana, this used to refer the traditional moment a newborn was present to the world outside his home (usually at 8 days old), now it also refers to the moment something new is introduced to the world “the prospective president has finally outdoored his running mate”
torchlight - Nigerian English for “torch” (UK) or “flashlight” (US).
English around the world
A map of UK accents
“This map will always be incomplete and inaccurate due to the nature of language,” says its creator, the person behind Starkey Comics. “I’ve spent the last few years pooling together every study, survey, map, and database I can find, and then subjecting my image to several rounds of peer feedback. The end result is an image which is, to my knowledge, the most detailed map of British dialects ever made. But it is still very much unfinished, and it always will be.”
Hearing the Music in Black American English
“Most West African languages are spoken in tones, like Chinese. Often the meaning of a word changes depending on what pitch you utter it in, and sometimes the pitch of a sentence is how you express grammar itself, where one melody means “the” while another one means “a.” Analysts have suggested — and I would agree with them — that the musical quality of the Black English dialect in its more expressive veins is a continuation of this aspect of African languages.”
AI to translate classic literature to African-American English
Some weird assertions in this one: “The product’s first iteration allows users to translate classic literature text into modern language, with Gen Z as its target audience. More specifically, the text translation is from standard text to African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a dialect that originated in the Black American community and is now used broadly by Gen Zers on the internet.”
A book of poems in Welsh and Welsh English
“Yer ower voices” is a book of poems in dialects of Welsh English and dialects of Welsh language mainly, along with hybrid dialects of Welsh and English blended.
New Books
The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl
I promise Mignon Fogarty has not paid me to be mentioned in this newsletter three times; she’s just been very active this past fortnight! Her new book with grammar tips is doing well in the charts, which doesn’t surprise me, as I always end up on her website when I am trying to figure out how to explain something to my students.
Academia: new books
The Oxford Handbook of Irish English
This book offers a comprehensive overview of the range of varieties of English spoken on the island of Ireland, featuring information on their historical background, structural features, and sociolinguistic considerations.
English in the Nordic Countries; Connections, Tensions, and Everyday Realities
People in the Nordic states – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland – rank as among the most proficient speakers of English in the world. International experts explore English usage in this region. PDF of introduction here.
Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication
This fully updated third edition of Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication provides an accessible, lively introduction for students who are new to the study of intercultural communication, with special attention devoted to the language dimension.
Acquisition and Variation in World Englishes; Bridging Paradigms and Rethinking Approaches
This book is the first of its kind to provide an integrative look at World Englishes, (second) language acquisition, and sociolinguistics in a variety of contexts of English around the globe with a focus on the language of children and adolescents.
Lexical Variation and Change; A Distributional Semantic Approach
This book introduces a systematic framework for understanding and investigating lexical variation, using a distributional semantics approach. I didn’t understand much of that, or the title, but I’m guessing that if you are a scholar in this field, you do. In that case, this book is for you! And great news: it’s open access.
Academia: articles that caught my eye
(Attention: some links lead directly to a PDF)
The difference between “I wish I was” and “I wish I were”
Wish-clauses with the subjunctive “were” tend to be associated with desires that are unrealistic or quixotic, unattainable or impossible, and/or unnatural or extraordinary, whereas those with the indicative “was” are generally tied to aspirations that are realistic or reasonable, attainable or possible, and/or natural or unexceptional.
Remixing the rules: Black Language and transatlantic linguistic flows
This paper argues for an emphasis on the effects of Black Language practice as I claim that Black Language gains its legitimacy through the recognition of its movements, performances, and communal relevance rather than by its claims as structural and rule-governed.
A study into “X-word” constructions
This study has two main goals. Firstly, it aims to explore how certain word constructions (like n-word, f-word, l-word) are repeated in language, examining how the evaluative meaning of these words influences their overall frequency. The second goal is to shed light on the different intentions behind the use of these word constructions from a practical standpoint.
English dominates academia; is this unjust?
English dominates scientific publishing, prompting debates on fairness. This study distinguishes between linguistic inequality (unequal language resources for native and non-native researchers) and linguistic injustice (systematic marginalization of non-English research). Evidence shows both entrenched inequality and widespread injustice, each with distinct forms.
“toasted English” and “Minglish”
“Toasted English” refers to the idea that language, like bread in the oven, undergoes subtle alterations while retaining its essential identity. Indian writer R.K. Narayan wrote an essay with that name in 2001, which this paper discusses. They also introduce the term Minglish, “a term that encapsulates the phenomenon of linguistic blending and adaptation observed not only in India but also in various global regions.” (I assume it is a portmanteau of mixed English, though the authors don’t actually state this.) The paper is not very well-written, but I enjoyed the sentiment and the metaphors.
If you would like to have your academic book or article featured in this newsletter, just reach out and let me know about it! You can reply to this email or find my contact details here.
And finally…
Source: https://tapas.io/episode/3016236
The number of mistakes in this newsletter is directly proportionate to the number of times my three-year-old woke me up last night. If you want to give me any feedback, you can use the comment button below, or hit reply to send me an email.