Nice Convolute
Posted by Essay Help on April 26, 2009The legendary George Carlin made a career out of calling attention to the difference between how words and phrases are perceived as opposed to what they’re ‘actually’ expression …
He would ask wondrous rhetorical questions, my favorite of which was this:
- Would you really get on a non-stop flight?
And yet, that constituent is not only old on a daily basis, but with a aboveboard face every time. How does this happen, where nonsense actually becomes an apprehensible phrase?
Thither are cardinal schools of cerebration when it comes to the consume of the English language. The conservative analyze is that its integrity must be maintained, perhaps grudgingly at times. The liberal analyze is that, in order to be a lively, spirited language, it needs to adapt to the times. Of course, thither’s also my analyze, which is that the English language defies definition.
My case could be started by citing the classic instance where it can be argued that ‘ghoti’ is a homonym of ‘fish’ by nature of the following logic:
- ‘gh’ sounds like ‘f’ in words like ‘enough’ and ‘cough;’
- ‘o’ sounds like ‘i’ in ‘women;’ and
- ‘ti’ sounds like ’sh’ in words like ‘countenance’ and ‘action.’
This is a ridiculous extreme, of course. The evolution of letter combinations and the sounds they represent in English is a result of dialectical isolation over many decades. As coupling as the language has become, this is a natural progression. It’s also why more geographically ‘compact’ languages much as Swedish remain ‘purer’ in the logic of their pronunciation rules.
Another development of English is that, not only do sounds change over time, so do definitions.
With that in mind, let’s accept a ‘nice’ change of direction. ‘Nice’ has its origin in the Latin morpheme, ‘nescius,’ which means ‘ignorant.’ So, the phrase ‘nice man’ would have been referring to an idiot in the 1400s. However, by the 1600s, the morpheme had turned. A ‘nice man’ so meant that he was ‘refined.’ After somewhat more than a century, a ‘nice man’ had become ‘pleasant’ — and recognized in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as much — which stands to this day.
How ‘displeased’ is that for a turn?
I’m not careful what ‘dudes’ did in the 1400s to do the deed on ‘nice,’ but their modern-day progeny are alive and advantageously today, movement the street meaning of ‘displeased’ into a word for ‘cool,’ which was ‘morphed’ by earlier ‘cats’ from a temperature condition to a country of zeitgeist. (That’s German for ‘trendy;’ conservatives find foreign phrases acceptable as ‘pop’ condescensions.) Every generation has its argot, of course. It’s rare that definitions of affected words actually evolve into the established vernacular, ie- dictionary recognition, which ironically gives them the distinction of being defended by conservatives as ‘proper’ English. Whether that occurs or not, people of each time period allay need to believe each other. This gives rise to ‘alternative’ reference sources.
One of the more interesting of these today is the Urban Dictionary. It’s the brainchild of Aaron Peckham, a educatee at (where else?) Cal Poly. He saw a need to catalog, define and post today’s argot for the benefit of all. His computer is non-profit and its popularity has skyrocketed. The key reason for this has got to be the exponential growth of cyberspace.
The Urban Dictionary has become so popular, it’s now available in book form. It contains a modest 2000 argot definitions. However, that’s the same as the number of submissions the site receives every day from contributors around the class. You’ll find over 250,000 submissions thither, from emoticons to phrases.
If you’ve ‘gone 404′ — a reference for the online error message displayed when a computer is missing — you’re truly address geek. If you’re ignoring individual by concentrating on your electronic device, much as a PDA, MP3 or laptop, you’re ‘evoiding’ them. Have you ever accidentally called individual because your mobile phone is fitting also tightly in your pocket? If so, you’ve just ‘butt dialed’ individual.
Peckham’s labor of love attracts millions of hits per year. He now utilizes the services of act editors to keep his computer up-to-date. It’s fair to have that the Urban Dictionary has become a reliable reference for coping with the cyber-culture. Peckham says as much in the book’s introduction, calling it “a resource for parents trying to believe their kids, for language learners confused by real-world English &ndash but most of all for your entertainment.”
It is an interesting breaker. As he promises, it can even be quite functional. In fact, I’d even go so to have that he’s done a real nice job with it. Real nice, indeed. In a displeased kinda artifact, of course.
Tags: argot dictionary, Cyberiter, etymology, linguistics, morpheme definition changes, morpheme meanings, online argot dictionary, Urban Dictionary