Today is the anniversary of California's admission as the 31st state of the Union. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 caused its population to explode, and in 1849 settlers applied for admission to the Union after drafting a state constitution that prohibited slavery. Because making California a state would upset the balance of free and slave states, statehood was delayed until September 9, 1850, when the Compromise of 1850 opened the door for California statehood.
In addition to a state constitution, Californians adopted a state seal in 1849 with the motto "Eureka," (The Greek word for "I Have Found It.") an appropriate interjection for a state whose reputation was made on gold strikes (1).
Today many things make California distinctive and influential: the influence of Silicon Valley and Hollywood to name two huge influences on the culture of American and the world. Another influence comes under the category of language. Val Speak, the speech pattern of the California "Valley Girl" has captured the imagination of linguists and lexicographers and has crept into the lingo of people who speak English all over the world.
In 1982, Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of Frank Zappa, recorded the hit "Valley Girl" with lyrics that mock the frenetic patter that was first used by California surfers and gradually moved inland to the California's suburban shopping malls:
So like I go into this like salon place, y'know
And I wanted like to get my toenails done
And the lady like goes, oh my god, your toenails
Are like so grody
It was like really embarrassing
She's like oh my god, like bag those toenails
I'm like sure...
She goes, uh, I don't know if I can handle this, y'know...
I was like really embarrassed... (2)
Certainly some of the lyrics of Valley Girl are a exaggerated for effect and humor, but there is no denying the fact that Val Speak is having an impact on American English, especially among people below the age of forty.
The website for the recent PBS series Do You Speak American reports that one interesting target for linguists is the speech of young white Californians, particularly their use of the discourse marker "I'm like." Known as a quotative, "like" is used to report quoted speech, such as: He was like, "Where do you wanna go?" Unlike the word "said," "like" allows the speaker to paraphrase what was stated instead of making a literal, exact rendering.
"Like" is the offspring of an earlier quotative "goes" that appeared in the 1940s: He goes, "Do you know the make and model of your phone?"
The like quotative was once the exclusive jargon of young Californians, but in the short span of the last twenty-five years it has so rapidly spread throughout American and beyond that sociolinguist William Labov has called it a linguistic "tsunami." But whether or not it is here to stay is uncertain; just as "like" replaced "goes," it appears that the word "all" may replace "like" as the hip quotative, used in sentences like this: Then, after a while, I was all, “See you later, good luck!” (3).
Today's Challenge: Like, Gag Me With Youth Speak
The words below are from the "Track That Word!" section of the Do You Speak American website under the category of Teen/Youth words and expressions. See if you can match up each of the ten words/expressions below with its correct definition.
Buggin'
Chalk
Chop it up
Dubs
Drama
Firme
Hooptie
Jargon
Jake
Kicks
1. Major preoccupation, concern, obsession
2. Worrying.
3. To Steal
4. Talking with friends with great interest, enthusiasm
5. Strong, solid, loyal
6. Twenty, pertaining to twenty dollars
7. Old, wrecked automobile
8. Confusion
9. Shoes
10. Everything is going well (4).
Quote of the Day: Nothing is wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. --Ross MacDonald
Answers. 1. Drama 2. Buggin' 3. Chalk 4. Chop it up 5. Firme 6. Dubs 7. Hooptie 8. Jargon
9. Kicks 10. Jake
1 - http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23856
2 - http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank+zappa/valley+girl_20056834.html
3 - Singler, John. "Like, Quote Me." Do You Speak American?
http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/like/
4. Track That Word - Do You Speak American?
http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/trackthatword/#
Showing posts with label Americanisms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Americanisms. Show all posts
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
August 13: Americanisms from the 1950s Day
Today is the anniversary of an article published in the show-business magazine Variety that featured a new word. The article published on August 13, 1950 used the term disc jockey for the first time in its reporting the phenomenon of New York radio hosts selecting and playing phonograph records for an eager audience of young fans of popular music. The term stuck, sometimes abbreviated as DJ or deejay. DJ is an example of an Americanism, an English word or expression that is born in the U.S.A. and that is used in the writing and speech of Americans.
The book America in So Many Words by David K. Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf documents Americanisms from the 1600s to the end of the 20th century. For each year, the authors select a single representative Americanism that was "newly coined or newly prominent." Looking at the words and the background of each is a reminder that every English word is like a fossil or an archaeological artifact that reveals the attitudes and trends of the age in which it was coined.
The below list of Americanisms from 1949 to 1960, for example, gives interesting insights into the characteristics of post-war America; the list also foreshadows several political, cultural, social, and economic trends that would emerge in the second half of the 20th century.
1949 cool
1950 DJ
1951 rock and roll
1952 Ms.
1953 UFO
1954 Fast Food
1955 hotline
1956 brinkmanship
1957 role model
1958 Murphy's Law
1959 software
1960 sit-in (1)
If English is the global language of the 21st century, then it is certainly American English which is the most influential variety of English. Whereas the English language of the British Empire dominated and propagated English around the world in the first half of the 20th century, American English, since the end of World War II, has exported English even farther than the Brits, via satellite and computer technology.
Even as early as 1780, John Adams envisioned this linguistic American Revolution:
English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age. The reason of this is obvious, because the increasing population in America, and their universal connection and correspondence with all nations will, aided by the influence of England in the world, whether great or small, force their language into general use.
One aspect that characterizes the American variety of English is its brevity. Americanisms are typically single syllable words or at least single syllable compounds. Americanisms include a variety of classifications that produce words that are short and sweet:
Americanisms are clipped words (such as fan from fanatic), blends (such as motel from motor + hotel), abbreviations (such as Ms. from mistress), initialisms (such as UFO from Unidentified Flying Object), and acronyms (such as AWOL from absent without leave).
In fact, even the word acronym is an Americanism that emerged from the government and military build-up of World War II to give Americans a way to compress multiple-word expressions into easy-to-communicate small packages. This Americanism uses Greek roots: acro- meaning top, peak, or initial and -nym meaning name. Using the initial letters of words, acronyms condense names, titles, or phrases into single words, such as radar for radio detection and ranging.
Today's Challenge: Born in the U.S.A.
Given the number of letters and a brief definition, see if you can identify the Americanisms below. None are more than four letters long
1. Three-letter word in response to someone stating to obvious.
2. A three-letter clipped word that emerged from rap music and its performers' desire for respect.
3. Two-letter initialism that reflects the American faith in the ability to measure anything, including the quality of a person's gray matter.
4. A three-letter clipped word that refers to any liquid, especially a sticky one.
5. A frequently used two-letter initialism with two different meanings. The first came out of the world of technology; the second meaning came out of the multicultural movement.
6. A two-letter initialism that refers to American soldiers.
7. A four-letter acronym that evolved from the Civil War to refer to soldiers who fled the battlefield or their assigned posts.
8. A three-letter initialism that reflects the American tendency to live life at a fast pace and to get things done in a hurry.
Quote of the Day: Thus the American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of his grammar teachers can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meets the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative. —H. L. Mencken
Answers:1. duh (1963) 2. dis (1986) 3. IQ (1916) [intelligence quotient] 4. goo (1902) 5. PC (1990) [personal computer; politically correct] 6. GI (1917) [See Word Daze June 22 GI Day 7. AWOL [absent without leave] (1863) 8. P.D.Q [Pretty Darn Quick] (1875)
1- Barnhart, David K. and Alla A. Metcalf. America in So Many Words: Words That Have Shaped America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.
2 - Algeo, John. "Americans are Ruining English." Language Myth #21. Do You Speak American? PBS.http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/ruining/
The book America in So Many Words by David K. Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf documents Americanisms from the 1600s to the end of the 20th century. For each year, the authors select a single representative Americanism that was "newly coined or newly prominent." Looking at the words and the background of each is a reminder that every English word is like a fossil or an archaeological artifact that reveals the attitudes and trends of the age in which it was coined.
The below list of Americanisms from 1949 to 1960, for example, gives interesting insights into the characteristics of post-war America; the list also foreshadows several political, cultural, social, and economic trends that would emerge in the second half of the 20th century.
1949 cool
1950 DJ
1951 rock and roll
1952 Ms.
1953 UFO
1954 Fast Food
1955 hotline
1956 brinkmanship
1957 role model
1958 Murphy's Law
1959 software
1960 sit-in (1)
If English is the global language of the 21st century, then it is certainly American English which is the most influential variety of English. Whereas the English language of the British Empire dominated and propagated English around the world in the first half of the 20th century, American English, since the end of World War II, has exported English even farther than the Brits, via satellite and computer technology.
Even as early as 1780, John Adams envisioned this linguistic American Revolution:
English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age. The reason of this is obvious, because the increasing population in America, and their universal connection and correspondence with all nations will, aided by the influence of England in the world, whether great or small, force their language into general use.
One aspect that characterizes the American variety of English is its brevity. Americanisms are typically single syllable words or at least single syllable compounds. Americanisms include a variety of classifications that produce words that are short and sweet:
Americanisms are clipped words (such as fan from fanatic), blends (such as motel from motor + hotel), abbreviations (such as Ms. from mistress), initialisms (such as UFO from Unidentified Flying Object), and acronyms (such as AWOL from absent without leave).
In fact, even the word acronym is an Americanism that emerged from the government and military build-up of World War II to give Americans a way to compress multiple-word expressions into easy-to-communicate small packages. This Americanism uses Greek roots: acro- meaning top, peak, or initial and -nym meaning name. Using the initial letters of words, acronyms condense names, titles, or phrases into single words, such as radar for radio detection and ranging.
Today's Challenge: Born in the U.S.A.
Given the number of letters and a brief definition, see if you can identify the Americanisms below. None are more than four letters long
1. Three-letter word in response to someone stating to obvious.
2. A three-letter clipped word that emerged from rap music and its performers' desire for respect.
3. Two-letter initialism that reflects the American faith in the ability to measure anything, including the quality of a person's gray matter.
4. A three-letter clipped word that refers to any liquid, especially a sticky one.
5. A frequently used two-letter initialism with two different meanings. The first came out of the world of technology; the second meaning came out of the multicultural movement.
6. A two-letter initialism that refers to American soldiers.
7. A four-letter acronym that evolved from the Civil War to refer to soldiers who fled the battlefield or their assigned posts.
8. A three-letter initialism that reflects the American tendency to live life at a fast pace and to get things done in a hurry.
Quote of the Day: Thus the American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of his grammar teachers can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meets the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative. —H. L. Mencken
Answers:1. duh (1963) 2. dis (1986) 3. IQ (1916) [intelligence quotient] 4. goo (1902) 5. PC (1990) [personal computer; politically correct] 6. GI (1917) [See Word Daze June 22 GI Day 7. AWOL [absent without leave] (1863) 8. P.D.Q [Pretty Darn Quick] (1875)
1- Barnhart, David K. and Alla A. Metcalf. America in So Many Words: Words That Have Shaped America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.
2 - Algeo, John. "Americans are Ruining English." Language Myth #21. Do You Speak American? PBS.http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/ruining/
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