[Air-l] Poll on annoying Internet neologisms

[Conor Schaefer]

This made me grin. I'd just like to point out the obvious here and say 
that natural languages are often prescribed, too, given the power 
relationships around education capital (newspapers, textbooks, 
dictionaries, etc.).

My knowledge of how the French prescription system works is even less 
than my knowledge of the language itself, but isn't it entirely possible 
that the it is the prescription paradigm more than the natural evolution 
of the language which led the youths in your anecdote to believe "cool" 
was a French word? They were accustomed to the fact that spoken words 
are canonical and thus "owned" by their culture heritage in some way. I 
think that speakers of a natural language (who are cognizant of the fact 
that the language is natural and evolves) would be used to fact that 
words are "borrowed" and thus foreign, yet appropriated and utilized. 
Don't you think?

-Conor

Alexis Turner wrote:
> Even prescribed languages evolve.  I am reminded of a friend who was recently in 
> France and was being given a hard time because he knew no French and was trying 
> to get the locals to speak to him in English - unfortunately, he had just made 
> the mistake of using the word "cool" to describe something, and the youths he 
> was interacting with were under the impression that "cool" was a French 
> word...hence, my friend was lying and must actually know French.
> -Alexis
>
>
> On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Peter Timusk wrote:
>
> ::Forgive me if I am wrong but French is a prescribed language.
> ::
> ::
> ::
> ::Peter Timusk,
> ::
> ::On 28-Jun-07, at 5:22 PM, Derek McMillan wrote:
> ::
> ::> Actually I think calling a URL "earl" is rather endearing.
> ::>
> ::> None of the top "annoying" neologisms annoy me however. It's a free
> ::> country, people will develop the language the way they find most
> ::> convenient and we can't lay down what words will or will not become
> ::> current. Tell pupils a particular turn of phrase particularly  
> ::> annoys you
> ::> and you are asking to hear it at every turn.
> ::>
> ::> McDonalds know this to their cost. They have tried to have the term
> ::> McJob (a low-paid non-union job) removed from the Oxford English
> ::> Dictionary (and forced their employees to circulate petitions). They
> ::> only attracted adverse publicity and ridicule for their pains.
> ::>
> ::> 	
> + --------
>    redheadedstepchild.org
>         ------- +
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