This newsletter slaps 🖐️, the Hull accent is sexy 💕, English speakers should be taxed 💰

Jan 03, 2024

Welcome to the latest instalment of English in Progress, the newsletter that keeps you updated on the English language. Fresh in your inbox every two weeks. (Ish.)

My name is Heddwen Newton. I am a translator and English teacher. I love discovering all the ways English is spoken; the ways in which it is used by different generations and by people from all over the world.

Best of the fortnight

Timothée Chalamet says Hull accent is sexy

Actor and heartthrob Timothée Chalamet has said in an interview that he finds the Hull accent sexy. Hull is located in the East of England and is a part of Yorkshire. It has a distinct accent which gets described in many ways, “sexy” not usually being one of them. The inhabitants of Hull are delighted, apparently. A local radio station took to the streets of Hull to ask people to say “something sexy” to a backing tune of Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus.

The word “rizz” is much closer to “charm” than “charisma”, and it’s dangerous

According to the originator of the term, the word “rizz” did not come from “charisma”, but was simply an invention of his friend group to describe someone who had “game”; who was good at picking up women. But popular culture has linked the term to “charisma”. Rhetorician Tom Wright notes that by making charisma all about charm, “rizz” brings toxic gender politics and misogyny to the surface. It makes sexual prowess the measure of all things.

A cultural analysis of Skibidi Toilet

My three-year-old, of proportionate-mistakes-causing fame, just about took my breath away two weeks ago by saying the word “skibidi” as we walked into the toilet (that’s my English’s way of referring to the room the toilet is in; we were not getting our feet wet). My own Gen Alpha progeny actually came out with one of my listed Gen Alpha terms. Such a weird experience. After some light questioning I learned a playmate of hers will say it whenever he is in the bathroom area, and that my daughter does not attach any meaning to the word; it’s just a funny thing to say. Good timing for this analysis of the short video series by The Washington Post.

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.

do your big one - to be doing well for yourself "My friend just got a tech job, she’s doing her big one!”

golden retriever boyfriend - a friendly, social, and kind boyfriend. Though first referenced in 2021, the term fully peaked in 2023 when Taylor Swift began dating Kansas Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who many folks consider to be a prime example of a golden retriever boyfriend.

it slaps - when something is undeniably good or desirable

left no crumbs - the task was completed to perfection

NATO dating - “Not Attached To an Outcome” dating; embracing dating as a journey of discovery without focusing on what it can become

preppy - a particular aesthetic that involves girly, brightly coloured clothes and popular name brands, such as Lululemon and Stanley.

to serve c*nt - someone displaying characteristics such as being confident, sassy or fierce

Accents

There are only two places in England where people still pronounce their r’s at the end of words

A rhotic R is the hard enunciation of the letter at the end of words, leading to an inflection towards the end of words such as shearer, pore and bird. It is a common trait of many accents like Irish, Scottish and American. It also used to be normal in England, but by now it has disappeared everywhere except for two final bastions of accented rhotacism: Blackburn and Bristol and the areas surrounding them.

The accent of Nigerian Airport Announcers

Nigerian-American professor Farooq Kperogi complains about the affected accent of Nigerian Airport announcers. Apparently they try to simulate a western accent, but end up speaking something that neither Nigerians nor Westerners can understand. “I found many Westerners, for whose sake airport announcers speak through their noses, asking Nigerian passengers what the airport announcers were saying […] But they got no help from Nigerians who thought affected nasalized accents were a competent mimicry of Western accents, which should be comprehensible to Westerners.” (I searched around online and I think this TikTok video gives an example of the kind of announcement meant.)

Women with a Mandarin accent in Canada are seen as warm and friendly, but this is not always a good thing

A new study reveals that Asian women with a Mandarin accent are often perceived as friendlier and more trustworthy than those without accents. While this might boost their chances of getting hired, it could also lead to gender-based job segregation. Industries associated with femininity, such as fashion and cosmetics, benefit from this bias, but traditionally masculine sectors like oil and gas may not see the same advantages.

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.

assholocene - the current era, characterised by people in power being assholes

blue zone thinking - a way of treating old people that sees them as an important part of society and encourages them to remain healthy and active

coffee badging - the practice of coming into work just to touch in with your badge and grabbing a free coffee before leaving again to work from home the rest of the day

cluster-fiasco - a non-vulgar way of saying clusterf*ck

crikeycore - an aesthetic or a list of items that comprise an outsider’s view of Australian culture (Vegemite, Bluey)

data lake - a repository where users can store and secure large amounts of data, allowing for multiple analyses of a dataset by different organizations and analysts (compare: data pool)

delusionship - a situation where a person imagines their romantic relationship with someone to be much more serious and committed than it is

effective accelerationism - philosophical movement that posits technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action; often abbreviated as "e/acc"

hyper-personalization - using ai to deeply individualise a service or product to a consumer

mesearch - when a researcher is researching a particular topic that they personally experience, or that they are in some other way personally invested in

rust out - when an employee is uninspired by their role, feeling bored and lacking intrinsic motivation to work (compare: burn out)

snirt - the filthy crust that covers old snow in the waning days of winter

English in society

English speakers have an unfair advantage. Can we compensate for that?

“Those who learn English as a second language incur learning costs, while native speakers can communicate with all network members without incurring such costs. It’s like getting the latest smartphone model and sim card with unlimited data for free.” In this piece, compensation is suggested, like a tax for English-speaking countries, or a system where patents last less long when English-speaking countries register them in non-English speaking countries. The background information in this article makes it an exellent one for teachers to use in the classroom. The Guardian also published some responses.

Non-English speakers are frequently excluded from clinical trials and research studies in the U.S

In the U.S., many non-English speakers, especially those with limited proficiency, are often left out of medical studies. This exclusion hampers diversity in research and can affect how well findings apply to everyone.

Black children who speak African American English are routinely misdiagnosed with speech disorders

Segregation has given rise to a distinct African American English. Speech professionals must recognize it to avoid misdiagnosing Black children and wasting valuable educational resources

World Englishes - vocab

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 fortnight. 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!

baghead - UK slang for an ugly, often homeless, woman who is addicted to drugs

Florida bath - Florida English (USA) for taking a dip in the pool to clean yourself in lieu of taking a shower

mob - Aboriginal English (Australia) for one’s own community

yeah, nah - Australian English for “no”

Odds and ends

The New Survey of Canadian English

1972 saw the results of the Survey of Canadian English (SCE), the first national study into the English spoken by Canadians from coast to coast. Now, the time has come for a new survey. All adult speakers of Canadian English are invited to participate in this project by responding to our questionnaire. It is easy and fun: it takes about 15-25 minutes to complete, depending on how much you want to think about your answers.

Editor Benjamin Dreyer reminisces

Benjamin Dreyer is the author of Dreyer’s English and in that capacity perhaps the godfather of English style guides. He wrote a piece upon his retirement as executive managing editor and copy chief at Random House and called it “Words in Progress” which I think is an Excellent Title. What a great way to denote language as ever-changing, somebody should use it as the title for a newsletter or something.

“I recall the utter nerdery of our gathering in the hallway and riffling the pages of our just-arrived copies to see if town house had finally become townhouse, or if a rest room was, at long last, a restroom. (“After all,” a colleague once noted, “it’s not a room you rest in, is it.”) Only years later did I learn from a lexicographer friend that I’d carried the process in my mind somewhat backward: “We can’t change things,” he explained, “if you don’t change them first.” If only I’d known.…”

And finally…

A very late

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.

I have used limited AI to create this newsletter; just to help me find the right phrasing. All articles were chosen, read and summarised by a human being, namely me :-)

This newsletter was shorter than usual due to health reasons. In two weeks I hope to be back in full swing!